Melissa & Kenny
How They Met
We met on an online dating site – OKCupid. At the time, it seemed online dating wasn’t very popular, at least within our circle of family and friends. Melissa came across Kenny’s profile but was too scared to send him a message. She “liked” his profile, hoping he would see it and take initiative, and he did! Kenny sent her a message, and the rest is history. He likes to take credit for their meeting, but Melissa says otherwise: Kenny’s search parameters were limited to 30 miles from Upland, and Melissa’s location was set to Los Angeles. So based on his criteria, he would have never found her. Melissa had her search set to 100 miles from Los Angeles, so the credit is all hers!
The Proposal
Kenny : On the day of the proposal, we were supposed to be going to brunch with friends (Of course, this was part of my plan. There was no brunch, mwahaha). When we were about to leave, I received a phone call from my “work” telling me I needed to come in to cover for someone else. In reality, it was my best friend Kyle who pretended to call me.
Melissa : Except I knew something was fishy, because Kenny is a horrible liar. He left in a hurry and very flustered, ha!
Kenny : I had my other best friend Stacy text Melissa and say she would pick her up for the brunch, since I couldn’t go any more. At this point, I was hiding in my car in another location.
Melissa : So I waited for Stacy, and she (out of the norm) came and knocked on our door. When I opened it, she had a card (which had a short mysterious note from Kenny) and a single red rose. Unfortunately, I am a very non-gullible person (i.e. suspicious, need-to-know-everything), so I kind of knew what was going to happen, but not how.
Kenny: 
Melissa : She ended up driving me to a Thai massage place, where we got 90 minute massages.
Kenny : I scheduled it for 60 minutes, so I don’t know what happened.
Melissa : Afterwards, she drove me to a Peruvian restaurant, where I saw 2 of our other friends standing out front. They both had a rose each, and there was another cryptic card. We had a weirdly prolonged lunch, and one of our friends was awkwardly postponing for something and kept looking at his phone. He then suggested we get coffee (which I don’t drink!). Then as we were walking to Starbucks, this car started honking crazily at us.
Kenny : That was the next friend I asked to help. She was over an hour late!
Melissa : So she took me away to what was supposed to be a hair salon… but it was closed. It seems that Kenny gave her the wrong address, but it didn’t matter because of all the delays (apparently we were over an hour late for that appointment). So I ended up keeping my greasy hair!! (they used oils at the massage place, and of course massaged my scalp…). It’s OK though, it was awesome that she was a part of this plan, and I’m grateful that Kenny included her.
Melissa : My friend then drove me back to our apartment where my best friend was waiting out front for me. They took me inside, and I saw that Kenny had decorated the place with rose petals and fabrics. In the hallway, there were 3 dresses hanging with a note on each to “pick me!”
Kenny : I picked them out all by myself!
Melissa : I picked a nice glittery high-low dress because the other two were basically hoochie-mama clubbing dresses :O I KNEW we were getting engaged at this point, so I sure as heck didn’t want to be wearing a clubbing dress for the photos! After this, they rushed me out to the car. I was then blindfolded and driven to a secret location.
Kenny : I picked a park that was about half an hour from where we live, because it had a man-made lake and dock in it. If any of you have seen the movie “Tangled”, remember the scene where they’re on a boat and all these candlelit lanterns float into the sky? I actually really like that movie, so this is where I got my inspiration from. I had spent weeks constructing a wooden contraption that was light enough to float and would keep the lanterns from sinking into the water. I had lanterns spelling out the words “Will you marry me?”. (See picture bellow)
Melissa : I got really nervous as they were walking me toward the specific location, because I kept hearing random strangers whispering and shouting out CONGRATULATIONS! (What a way to ruin a surprise! What if I didn’t know what was going on?!) We finally got to the dock, where they took off my blindfold and I saw Kenny and the lanterns. I wanted to shout YES right away, but he had a speech prepared. I of course started bawling my eyes out so those photos shall remain in my secret folders forever.
The Engagement Session
Our photographer, John Yao, was so easy to work with. Since our only experience being in front of a camera was in the form of selfies, it was nerve-wracking to have to be in a photo shoot dedicated to us. Since we are also somewhat attention-whores, it was fun feeling like we had paparazzi following us, with random people watching…
The Engagement Ring
Kenny : Long before I started planning for our engagement, we had casually talked about ring designs. She had shown me photos of a few that she liked, and told me what styles she hated. I sketched out my own design using different elements from those that she liked. My friend took me to the same jeweler that designed his wife’s rings, so I was able to get a custom-made engagement and matching wedding band.
Photo credit: John Yao from Simply Two Photography
