How we got engaged!

On July 15th Joey and I got engaged in the dunes of Kijkduin. While I did not have any clue to how it was planned at the time, I can say after the event that it was planned perfectly with love and attention.

A week prior to the engagement Joey had told me that he wanted to take me back to Kijkduin, the beach where we had our first date, to redo the date. He had gone there a few times with others and wanted to show me the newly renovated boulevard there. We had made plans like this several times before and cancelled last-minute due to the weather or some other small inconvenience, thus I did not think a lot of it.

Wednesday July 13th was the day he officially decided to propose to me on Friday. This was also the day he sent the official greenlight messages to our families to be there on time as he had planned for our loved-ones to be there directly after the engagement to celebrate. But coincidentally on Wednesday and Thursday I had some gloomy days (as we all have sometimes) which would turn out to be fortunate for us.

Because on the day of, while Joey was preparing the last touches with some friends in The Hague, I decided to take off early from work to go to a hairsalon to cheer myself up. As I knew he was there I chose my hairsalon in The Hague so that I could pick him up afterwards. As we were planning on going on a date anyway, I thought this would be perfect! What I did not know was that this would actually throw Joey for a loop as he did not plan on me being off early and let alone go to where he was.

However he was able to work around my spontaneous impulsive plans and while we were back at home to get ourselves ready for our date, he was even able to get me to wear makeup and chose my dress as he knew it was important for me to have a nice outfit. I did not think a lot of it once again as he just playfully convinced me that this is what I would wear on our first date anyway! I honestly thought he was doing and saying those things to cheer me up too so I gladly went along.

During the car ride to Kijkduin, I made some pictures of us, thus in our engagement album by pure coincidence we now have some "before" pictures.

At Kijkduin however, Joey led me through the dunes as he did on our first date and we tried to find the Scottish Highland cattle that roam around there. When we got to a certain part though, I saw from far away that someone had setup a white tent. I exclaimed "Look!! A white tent! Someone set up a white tent!" and Joey replied "Oh really? Let's check it out". I'm sure you already know where this is going...

After maybe 10 minutes of walking to the tent, I saw that there was a photographer and a model nearby. I immediately did not want to go to the tent anymore as I realized that it was theirs. So I tried to steer Joey away but he pointed out that we can just walk past and take a quick peak at what it exactly was and again I followed. When we got closer however, Joey just kept walking towards the tent and I felt this uncomfortable feeling and said "Don't go there, it's theirs". At this moment, I think the photographer saw my hesitation and told us "You can take a peak! We're going to use it later on" as the "model" was posing elsewhere. This relieved me and gave me incentive to check it out as her sentence made it seem that more people were curious about the tent.

So I took a few steps towards Joey, still a bit hesitant, and looked at the setup. I think that was when it very slowly entered my brain as Joey was still trying to usher me even closer so that I could see the chalkboard with our names on it. When I saw our name I was shocked and even hit Joey on the arm as I was so surprised it was actually for us!

He then went down on one knee and asked me The Question while the photographer was click-clicking away.

You can find our engagement photo album in the gallery!