Six years ago, near the end of my huge first trip to India, I met Ben in a bar in Calangute, Goa and moved to India. Six months ago we took our dogs and cat from India and moved to Mexico… a big adventure! One month ago, Ben proposed to me in the Yucatan. Soooo I guess that means we are getting married!

I think you guys know by now I’m not really the mushy gushy type. Ben and I have approximately 20 photos together, 10 of which we are drunk and 10 we have helmets on for go-karting. We just aren’t that type of couple that takes a lot of photos together (hence why he’s never on my Instagram) or make a big deal out of things like anniversaries (something we never celebrate). I’ve only written one post about Ben and it was about how we met which you can read here.

So I’m getting out of my comfort zone a little bit here to share this news with you! It’s obviously going to be a big part of my life, so I definitely wanted to share about it with you.

ben

Ben and I 5.5 years ago in England at a wedding, one of the probably 5 times we’ve ever got this dressed up together, all of which were friends’ weddings

Ben’s sister’s wedding in London last year

I’ll start at the beginning, the proposal

I’m trying to think which day it happened but just can’t think of the date. It was a weekend about a month or so ago! Ben and I went to the beach like usual and took the dogs with us. We drove an hour out to our favorite beach, San Crisanto.

We packed up the beach chairs and umbrella and made lunch to take. Doritos and PB&J. Classy.

We chilled with the dogs for a while and I read most of the afternoon and then we went on a walk, yada yada, Ben proposed! Haha! Is that good enough? No? ;) I’ll share a little more.

Okay, so basically he had the ring on Shanti’s collar. In typical Ben fashion, he stepped on a huge amount of burrs right before he was going to propose so he had to sit down to take them out. I was laughing at him because he literally does this all the time – and in India recently on a beach walk stepped on a nail.

We walked a bit further and he stopped and got the ring from Shanti’s collar but I just thought he had a burr in his foot still so I was like “hurry up” haha! And then he asked me and I was like wait what is happening… because I did not see that coming, but obviously said yes.

It was perfect on the beach with my dogs there, too! I always told Ben I wanted a simple proposal, not big grand thing, and with no one around. Couldn’t have been better.

Now for the funny part which ruins the romance but it’s just so funny. So he had obviously been down on the sand to propose and we were over there for a little while, so when we went back to our little seating area this guy and his son came up to us and were like “we had a little figurine we are missing it… it was over there.” They pointed to where he proposed. We are like “umm, okay, we didn’t see anything”. They were like “Are you sure?” We told him yes. He then proceeded to scope out our stuff like he thought we stole some figurine!? We were like this is so bizarre but it was pretty funny. The guy and his son left, definitely thinking we were over there digging around taking their supposedly hidden and now lost “figurine”, because why else were we over there for so long with Ben down in the sand!? What are the chances?

The ring (that’s what everyone wants to really know!)

Ben proposed with a simple band that he got this summer when he asked my parents if he could marry me, like the gentlemen he is (shocker, I know). He did that so that I could pick out my own ring. We had always talked about getting one online at Blue Nile whenever we did get married. Living in India and seeing the wholesale prices compared to the prices of rings in stores big jewelry stores is literally crazy, like double. Blue Nile is an online site that has GIA official rings and you can select the cut, color, quality, carat, etc and pick out the perfect ring for your budget. We had looked in London a year ago just peeking because he had asked what kind of ring I wanted and similar rings there compared to online were about double so I told him if he ever proposes with an overpriced ring, I would hate that haha!

I also wanted a compass ring with a “NSEW” setting which is a little more rare to find, and I wanted 14K gold (because any higher is really yellow and I didn’t want it to be a bright gold). I found that setting on Blue Nile and told Ben it was what setting I wanted after he had proposed. He then picked out the stone so I’d be surprised and sent it to my parent’s house in Ohio so that when I got home for Thanksgiving it was there. Best present ever!

ring

It was too big, though, so I sent it back for resizing which is free and now it fits perfect (if not a little too small but that’s just because I have giant knuckles) and I’m so obsessed with it! I always wanted a simple band and just one diamond on there and its perfect. I suppose it’s a little unconventional to order a ring online but was actually Ben’s brother’s idea to propose with a pretend ring and then let me pick out a ring later which Ben thought was a good idea and I agree. Ben wanted to give me a wooden ring and once asked me if I’d like tigers eye or “amber with a bug in it” as the stone – so I think it’s only fair that I told him I’d like to pick the ring out myself ;)

I got it insured online and have to triple check they’d cover me living in Mexico and traveling all the time! When I insured it, it made me realize how much money you actually save buying a ring wholesale – because you insure the “retail” value which is what it would cost in a store, and that number is on a document from Blue Nile and is nearly double what we actually paid. No Tiffany’s for me, lol.

The wedding

We are getting married in August next summer. I’m 30 in June so feel like this summer is a good time to get married and honestly just don’t think anything will change so it doesn’t really feel like that big of a deal – we’ve been living together for six years. We’ve lived abroad in India which has its challenges, had pets we love pass away, adopted more pets, and moved across the world to Mexico and started over again. I feel like we will be just fine getting married!

I think I’ll just keep my name because I honestly can’t imagine changing my passport, India and Mexico visas, USA and Mexico driver’s licenses, etc. It would be such a pain!

I’m getting married in a barn just 10 minutes from my house. It’s going to be a fairly simple wedding but just what I pictured with all the people that I love there! I think that most of Ben’s family and friends will be coming over from England, and his bestie, Mitch will be officiating the wedding. We are having a cool band play, and my friend Colleen is singing at the ceremony.

Don’t worry, I won’t spam you out with boring wedding details all year. I’m going to share about it though – but over on my lifestyle blog Omni Curated. If you want to follow along, then make sure you sign up to my email subscription over there or follow my Omni Curated Facebook page.

Ben has been the best part of my life for so many years now and I couldn’t be happier to get married to him! The next thing to consider is: where will the honeymoon be!? Let me know where you think Ben and I should go! Somewhere epic and adventurous!

Tanzania? Zanzibar? Madagascar? All three!?

Thailand

Singapore

India

Malaysia

Goa

Sri Lanka

 

 

This post is sponsored by Blue Nile. Ben had already purchased the ring before I was ever in contact with Blue Nile. This is a ring I will be wearing for the rest of my life and wouldn’t take a sponsored post for something like this if I wasn’t already going to be loving it, and I do love it so much!