Even rain can't stop a proposal plan...

Travel Story

If you ask my fiance, the most difficult part of the proposal was probably convincing me to dress up. Forget the carrying a ring from the US past overly-diligent TSA agents that combed through every inch of his bag or coordinating a proposal shoot in a foreign country. It was getting me to dress up. His cover story had been that it would be fun to dress up nicely one of our evenings in Madrid, since we were going to a nice restaurant. In the poor guy's defense, about 30 minutes before we were set to leave for the park where he was planning to propose, my laziness skyrocketed and my desire to dress up plummeted. Through some graceful (and some not so graceful maneuvering) he managed to convince me to get back to the original plan. Phew - we were past the biggest hurdle, right? Wrong. Julia (our fabulous photographer) and my fiance had Skyped the previous week and decided to do the proposal in front of the tree next the pond across from the Crystal Palace. If you haven't seen this, Google it, because it is absolutely spectacular! Sadly, due to the horrendous weather in Madrid, that decades-old tree fell the morning of the proposal!! Julia had gotten to the location a little early to scout it out and had texted saying "SOS!! The tree has fallen! Here are some alternatives." Having turned off his notifications to avoid me seeing a text message that would blow the surprise, he was blissfully unaware of the fallen tree situation. Fortunately, Julia expertly caught us as we were headed to the site and said, "Hey! You both look like tourists. Just wanted to let you know that this really old tree fell down over there, so you can't really access that path. I recommend going around the back, because you'll get a beautiful view of the palace from there as well." While Julia thought she had been so awkward, I had actually thought that she was so kind for warning us! We headed to the back of the building and then ... well, you can see for yourselves :)