THE PROPOSAL

The ring was purchased, the date was set, and the Partiful invitation for the engagement party had already gone out to more than fifty family and friends. Everything was locked in — until, three weeks before the proposal, Taylor told Lynn, "When we get engaged, I really want one night where it's just you and me. No need for a photographer or a big, blowout party. I just want us to sit in the bliss together for one evening before we tell the rest of the world."

Lynn calmly reassured Taylor that this had always been the plan.

The very next day, he scrambled to cancel the photographer, move the engagement up by a day, and quietly reroute a proposal that had been in the works for months — without missing a beat.

It all came together the last night of their trip down to Raleigh, North Carolina, where they'd gone to see one of their favorite artists, Sam Barber, in concert. They stayed at the Umstead Hotel, overlooking a private lake, and the morning after the concert, Lynn asked Taylor if she wanted to "walk the lake together before dinner."

Taylor started to get a little suspicious, and things only got more interesting when a very expensive bottle of champagne — meant to be enjoyed lakeside later that evening — showed up at their room three hours early. As if that weren’t enough, it arrived addressed to ‘Mrs. Strong," a common mix-up that comes with the territory when your first name is Lynn. Ever so smoothly, Lynn asked Taylor if she’d been the one to order it before slipping out to sort things out with the staff. He returned, brushed it off as a booking mistake, and made sure a second bottle would be waiting in the right place at the right time.

One crisis averted, but another one followed: Lynn’s poker face or lack thereof. While Taylor was curling her hair, she caught Lynn sitting on the tub watching her get ready with tears in his eyes. All he managed to say was that she looked “so beautiful."

After polishing off the first bottle of champagne, they made their way down to the lake together. While strolling along the water, Lynn got down on one knee and asked Taylor to marry him. Taylor happily said yes. After a few happy tears, a long hug, and a kiss, Lynn led her along a trail of rose petals to a secluded cove on the lake.

There, Lynn had arranged a beatiful table with white tablecloth, gorgeous flowers, and a second, correctly timed bottle of champagne. As they sat down to celebrate, he let Taylor in on one final surprise: there was more to come and he couldn't keep it a secret any longer. The next day family and friends would be waiting back in Chicago for an engagement party, followed by a party bus to Streeters Tavern, their favorite dive bar. Sunday would bring brunch with both sets of parents followed by a boat day on Lake Michigan with their closest friends.

In the end, Lynn made sure Taylor got exactly what she asked for — one night, just the two of them — and that the rest of the world got its turn too.