My Engagement Story (Plus What’s Next)

FeaturedTravel

Feb 15

It’s been nearly a month since Travis and I got engaged. I couldn’t be happier. But not because I have “the ring.” It’s how I feel. I knew I’d be excited. But to see how happy it has made Travis was the unexpected root of my cloud nine high. I want to dive into the story, and share a little bit about our plans for the wedding planning process.

If you haven’t already, check out my engagement reel.

A Dream Come True in Malibu

Travis and I have been together for eight years. We moved in together after eight months. We got engaged on 1/18. When we were sitting back, watching the waves crash beneath our hotel balcony, sipping a glass of champagne, and relishing in this new blissful feeling of being engaged, we pieced together the significance of “8” in our lives. “The figure eight on its side symbolizes infinity, too,” Travis said, finalizing this intriguing ideation.

Our engagement has felt like a long time coming, and yet feels so fresh, and exciting, and fulfilling! And while seeing a sparkly ring slide onto my finger was certainly nice, I had no clue it would fall so far down the line of the other feelings that were coursing through me.

We had booked a quick trip to Malibu. After a week celebrating Christmas with both of our entire families in Las Vegas, followed by New Year’s Eve with friends, followed by a week-long ski trip to Aspen with my mother, we were craving some R&R, just the two of us.

Travis and I have very quickly cruised through Malibu, but never gotten to experience it fully. So, we booked two nights at Malibu Beach Inn and got on our way. The first day there, it rained to the point where we couldn’t really walk around and explore, or sit outside and enjoy an al fresco dining experience. However, the room and the view were so breathtaking at Malibu Beach Inn, that it truly didn’t matter.

I live across the street from the beach at home, but nothing prepares you for the wildly beautiful sound of waves slapping the sand and rocks as they rush in, and the click-clack of the waves tickling seashells as they retreat back out to sea. We spent all afternoon sitting on the balcony watching and listening to this simple phenomenon.

That night, we had a quiet dinner at the hotel’s restaurant, Carbon Beach Club Restaurant. Everything we ate was ridiculously good, but the absolute winner was the whole branzino for two. We snuck off to bed early, falling asleep to the sound of the ocean inhaling and exhaling.

We woke up on 1/18 to blue skies and sunshine, and took the opportunity to explore Carbon Beach just below our room. A brief walk turned into a nice long run. As soon as we got back to the room, we slipped on our swimsuits and went straight back down to the sand, where we were met with lounge chairs by a staff member. We sat and enjoyed the warm winter sun on our bodies, and admired how nice the change in weather was from the day before.

After about an hour, I asked Travis if he wanted to go back to the room to eat something and enjoy a glass of wine. He was oddly reluctant (I had no idea he had originally been trying to propose to me on the beach!) though eventually he followed me up for lunch. We sat on the balcony, eating our salad, when we noticed a sea lion had perfectly timed the tide to be push itself up onto a rock and bask in the sun for an afternoon nap. It was the cutest thing. I remembered we had binoculars in our room, so I went to get them to get a closer look. Travis got up at the same time, but I was unaware of where he was going.

As I stared through the binoculars at this adorable (and ancient!) creature, Travis called my name. Upon turning around, I saw him on one knee on the balcony. “I think this is the perfect time to ask you: Will you marry me?”

The question carried so much more weight than I had anticipated. I hadn’t prepared for how the words “marry me” would feel. It’s a BIG ask. It’s a lifetime ask. My heart swelled with overwhelming happiness.

“Yes. Yes, of course I will marry you,” I said. And my answer felt just as unanticipatedly deep as his question had. I can feel that feeling today, right now, just as much as I did in that moment with the sun beating down on us, the waves roaring, and the laughter and tears that ensued as we embraced.

After we held each other for what seemed like hours, he asked if I wanted to try the ring on. I had forgotten about it for a moment. I focused on the tiny, complicated prisms sparkling in the sun as he took the ring out of the box and slipped it onto my finger. It was even more beautiful (and even bigger!) than I had anticipated. What a sight. What a feeling.

Travis stood back and said, “We’ve had so many incredible moments by the water. Whether in Portugal, Spain, France, Maine, Newport, or now in Malibu, we’ve connected deeply over the water, particularly the ocean. I really wanted to propose to you in a setting that honored that.”

Travis has never been one for words (that’s my job, literally), but whenever I read a love letter or poem from him, I’m amazed at his capacity to love and appreciate life, and to articulate it when it matters most. We spent the rest of the day in a love bubble comparable to the first time we said “I love you.” It’s funny how after eight years, suddenly this new chapter feels like just the start.

We popped champagne, we danced to music in the room, we went back to the beach for a little, and eventually, we prettied ourselves up and walked next door to Nobu to enjoy some sushi, a round of drinks on the house, and one of the most fantastic sunsets I’ve ever seen. The whole experience was so dreamy I wish I could do it all over again.

I can’t imagine a better place to have said “yes” than Malibu, and particularly at Malibu Beach Inn. The boutique, luxury hotel offers just 47 rooms hovered above Carbon Beach — an infamous stretch of coastline nicknamed “Billionaire's Beach.” The hotel, the location, and its surroundings offered a level of seclusion and sophistication that set the scene for a perfect engagement. And after eight years, who would want anything less?

Now the one question people have been asking me is, “When are you getting married?” And to that I say, “Did you see how long it took us to get engaged?”

No, but really we aren’t totally positive. We’ve been trying to enjoy our engagement and not rush anything. However, I will say that, to avoid stress, I have begun to think about what I want to do, and where I want to do it. To help with the process, I signed up for an app called Wedding Day Timeline — the first and only website designed for couples to use AI to create a complete professional timeline for their wedding in five minutes.

The app makes a timeline for your specific wedding, bridging the gap between the restrictions of a simple template and the cost of hiring a wedding planner.

“Timeline templates don’t tell you how long events should be. They can’t calculate travel times. They can’t tell you what time your events should be, or allow you to reorder events,” Hooman Bahrani, creator of the app, tells me.

“And we’re different from wedding planners because we can generate your timeline in minutes versus weeks. You have 24/7 access to your timeline and can make changes anytime. Our timeline is one page. The average wedding planner timeline is five pages. This is because the average wedding planner timeline is designed for the wedding planner — with all of their notes. A long timeline is confusing for the couple, and hard to use on the wedding day.

“And perhaps the biggest difference is price. A wedding planner costs an average of $3,800, while our timeline is under $200.”

Hooman started Wedding Day Timeline to answer the issue of undue stress caused by the wedding process. “I’ve been photographing weddings almost every weekend for the past 16 years. I kept seeing the same mistakes and problems over and over again. At the same time, so many couples would call me weeks before the wedding stressed out wanting help with their timeline.

“They didn’t know where to start, what should be in it, how long events should last. And more importantly, they hadn’t really thought of what they wanted their wedding day experience to be. What THEY wanted for their wedding.

“I saw couples rush through their wedding, be stressed over problems at their wedding, and lose thousands or tens of thousands of dollars trying to adjust for mistakes and problems which could have all been prevented if they had started their planning process with a professional timeline.

“Searching online all I could find were free templates. And they’re what you would expect from most things which are free. They left users with more questions than answers.”

And so Hooman put together a small team of developers to create Wedding Day Timeline. The platform saw early success and continues to grow week by week.

The AI can create a timeline in seconds, while any adjustments, such as the time or duration of any event, can be updated at your convenience, which will prompt all other timeline adjustments to be updated so there are no conflicts. You can also drag and drop to rearrange events, and all time will automatically be adjusted. The app also features the ability to text and email the wedding party, parents, vendors, etc. the timeline and Google Map links to all locations.

“We want to help empower couples to take control of their wedding day so they can have the wedding day experience they want to have and help prevent the stress of weddings and prevent the mistakes which cost thousands of dollars,” says Hooman.

I’ll be using my social platforms to bring you all along my wedding planning journey, and keep you updated on how I’m using Wedding Day Timeline along the way.