This is a story that is incredibly special to me, and I am so excited that I get the chance to partner with Jewelers Mutual Insurance Group and share it with you. This is our proposal story, the beginning of our lives together, and one of the most blissful days in my entire life.

I have always had a love for the Spanish language and culture. I learned Spanish while volunteering as an art teacher in an orphanage in Guatemala in my early twenties. Since that experience, it's been a lifelong mission of mine to keep up my Spanish in hopes of raising my children bilingual. Perry, my very thoughtful boyfriend at that time, knew that it had been several years since I had the opportunity to be completely immersed in the Spanish language and culture and booked me a month-long trip to Oaxaca, Mexico as a present for finishing graduate school. Little did I know what he really had planned for us during this time in Mexico.

I arrived two weeks before Perry joined me in order to take some advanced Spanish classes and develop my Spanish further. During these two weeks, I met the most incredible people from all over the world and my Spanish seemed to be soaring to new heights. I can remember a moment walking down the streets and thinking how confident I was in myself and really liking who I was as a person. Acknowledging your self-worth is vitally important. By chance, or perhaps, it was by fate how confident I felt in the moments leading up to our engagement. I felt whole before Perry asked me to marry him, and I cherish that.

The two weeks solo flew by so quickly despite not being with Perry. On the day of his arrival, I had learned that I had passed an exam that I needed to get my occupational license. Much was to be celebrated! The second I saw him, my heart pitter-pattered and I was so insanely excited to show him around Oaxaca. However, we didn’t get out of the airport as smoothly as expected as his backpack never made it on the plane (it was a small plane, so there were no carry-ons allowed). My Spanish was tested that night, and I had to talk to the security guards, give them our accommodations address and pray that they would drop it off as soon as they located it. Three days went by, and Perry only had the clothes on his back. He had the best sense of humor about it. Every night, he would wash his boxers in the shower and I would tease him for it. Thankfully, his bag was finally located and dropped off at our apartment that we were renting for, I kid you not, only 75 dollars per week! It was a major dump, but we were being frugal and didn’t care, as we spent most of our time exploring and being outside.

The next week was the most magical week of my life. Before this trip, we had a long conversation about how important it was to both of us that we could travel well together. We share a love for the world, and if for some reason we didn’t get along on this trip or had two different of methods when it came to traveling, I don’t know if our love story would have continued.

Luckily, we were always on the same page, and I think the only time we got into a tiff was when we were at the bank and Perry was asking me to translate, and I had no idea what the teller at the bank was saying! Ha, I can barely understand financial terms in English, let alone in Spanish. This bank experience is actually a joke now. When the lady was talking, I had asked her in Spanish to slow down and explained that I didn’t understand what she was saying. I asked her to try using different words and perhaps give me some visual cues as to what she needed from us to make the transaction. Perry said, “Oh thank god you speak Spanish” and I replied, “I literally told this lady that I have no idea what she is saying”. We both laughed a lot over that.

Okay, so the engagement part. On Perry’s birthday, I had planned out the entire day to make it special for him. We started the morning at the market getting fresh baked bread and coffee. We took a bus to the ruins and spent a good two hours touring them and laying in the grass looking at the clouds. Afterward, we went to the town center and shopped our hearts out, trying on local clothes and eating everything in sight. Most importantly, we revisited a local artist that specializes in making ceramic jewelry that we had discovered the day before. While we were there, Perry kept asking me which piece of jewelry was my favorite (that should have been a hint).

That night, Perry and I ate at the most beautiful restaurant, and during dinner, he kept saying how beautiful I was. I should have been tipped off again because Perry is not usually super vocal about his thoughts or feelings.

After dinner, we started walking back to our dingy apartment, and he grabbed my hand and asked me to go a different way back in order for him to share his discoveries from that day while I was in class. Upon approaching a public square with a center fountain, he held both my hands more intently and started talking about the symbolism behind the design of the fountain. He has a master’s degree in landscape architecture, so he knew quite a lot about this type of fountain. He explained that the design of the fountain depicted four rivers emerging from a central point, and that the center symbolized the origin of all things, or paradise.

He then got down on one knee and asked me, “Terra, will you create a paradise with me? ¿Quieres casarte con migo?” (Will you marry me?). Apparently, he had asked a local how to say it while I was in Spanish class and had been practicing it all week. He pulled out that beautiful ceramic ring from the artist that we had visited and I started bawling. It was just us and it was perfect.

We spent the next week at the beach and talked about our kids' names and what life was going to be like. It was honestly the happiest summer of my life.

When we got back to Colorado, we knew that we wanted to design a diamond ring together. We chose a more vintage look, and the sides of my ring have leaves on them to represent our paradise and our engagement story. It is truly something special.

Our proposal day was the happiest day of my life, and I'm glad to know there's a jewelry insurance expert to care for my ring. If you are planning to get engaged, are newly engaged, or already married, I put together some helpful information.

Here is an excellent article on everything you need to know about jewelry insurance. Whether you're recently engaged or already married, Jewelers Mutual Insurance Group makes getting a free online quote quick and easy. Tell your partner to check out to this article to learn what brides-to-be want in an engagement ring.

This post was sponsored by Jewelers Mutual. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Photos by Brittany Renee

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