Kellie & Greg, The Sunset on the Beach Story

"All I remember was saying, ?Oh my God, GET UP! Get up!! This isn't really happening, Greg, get up!'"

Just like some of the best movie romances, Kellie and Greg's story started with the boy loving the girl and the girl not liking the boy. And just like in the movies, the girl eventually came around…
Kellie and Greg met during their Sophomore year of Molloy High School. He was on the baseball team. She was on the softball team. They had the same friends, so they inevitably were always around each other, and became good friends themselves. Greg ended up liking Kellie, but she didn't see him as anything more than just a friend. Greg never gave up, though, and ended up winning Kellie over …at least as just her prom date.

After high school they both went away to different colleges, but kept in touch. Of course, in perfect romantic movie fashion, Kellie finally developed feelings for Greg. It was their sophomore year when Kellie went to Greg's parents' 25th Anniversary party and did something very bold and ultimately, life changing: Walking back to his dorm after the party, Kellie grabbed Greg and bluntly blurted out, "Do you want to be my boyfriend?!" He was shocked, taken aback, and needless to say, he didn't know how to react. He's caught a lot of curve-balls in his life, but this one was the one that surprised him the most.

The Perfect Proposal, from Kellie…

"Greg and I planned a trip to Aruba. It was a standard vacation trip. I swear I thought absolutely nothing of it. To me it was just a trip to Aruba! So one of the nights we were there we planned to go to dinner at this beautiful restaurant called Passions on the Beach. This place is beautiful. Their tables and chairs are on the sand so you're actually having dinner on the beach with your toes in the sand, facing the ocean.

Again, just like with the entire trip, I thought nothing of the extremely romantic dinner on the beach at sunset! I guess I should've, though, now that I think about it. It was the perfect setting…

So as we were getting ready to go to dinner that night, Greg decided that he needed to bring a handkerchief that almost looked like a little towel with him. I looked at him in disbelief and asked him why on earth he would need that weird looking towel thing at dinner. He said, "I want to bring it because you know, it's hot, I?m going to sweat I'm gonna use it to wipe myself." I actually could not believe he was going to bring this towel to wipe his sweat at this amazingly beautiful, elegant restaurant: "You're so embarrassing. Don't bring it, Greg."

Yeah… he brought it.

When we got to the restaurant, a photographer was going around to all the tables taking pictures. When she got to our table, though, I rudely said "No thank you" and made her go to the next table. Greg looked at me with a weird face but I told him there was no way I was paying $65 for a picture. You know, being from New York, we're very like, ?give me my space, let me do what I want!' So because I refused to pay money for a picture, I asked our waiter to take a picture of us.
As soon as we got up and posed for the picture in front of the sunset, I saw Greg get down on one knee.

Everything at that point was a blur. I don't even remember what I was thinking or what I felt because it seriously all faded into a blur. I had no words. I was in shock. I started shaking and hysterically crying. All I could manage to say to him was, "Oh my God, GET UP! Get up!! This isn't really happening, Greg, get up!" I was basically yelling at him as he was trying to ask me to be his wife. And, I forgot to say yes! Of course, what I could say, though, was "I can't believe you actually listened and got me a pear shape!" I had been hinting towards that, and he actually got me one! I never expected that.

Even though I never actually said ?yes', Greg knew I wanted nothing more than to be his wife. He slid the ring on my finger and made me his fianc?e.

Oh — and everything that happened leading up to that moment made sense afterwards! Greg wanted to bring the towel to dinner because he used it to hide the ring box that was in his pocket. He never used it to wipe himself once (thank God). The persistent photographer? Greg hired her to take our picture as the proposal happened. He even had her take pictures of every table so that I wouldn't notice. Of course, I had to go and ruin that by sending her away. Thankfully, she took pictures discretely from afar the entire time. The waiter I asked to take our picture was smart and actually filmed the proposal as it happened. All the little things Greg worked so hard on I managed to make a little more complicated! But despite everything, "Greg gave me the most beautiful, amazing, and perfect proposal, and I couldn't have imagined a better one."

I married my high school prom date on November 1st, 2014.