The few days before & after Easter have always been a special time for me. Growing up, our spring break was always right around this time, so Easter meant heading out of town to spend time & celebrate Christ's resurrection story with our family! Some of my favorite memories are Easter morning egg hunts with my cousins and getting dressed up in our 'Easter best' for church!! We didn't head out of town for the Easter weekend of 2013, but it still was an extra special one!! On Good Friday (March 29th to be exact!) Robert took me to Greensboro & he PROPOSED!!

I had the day off from work that day, and we had planned to go to Greensboro, North Carolina for a day trip. Greensboro is only about 2 hours from Roanoke, so this was kind of our ‘thing’ while we were dating! We would take a day trip to Greensboro to shop, explore the town, drive through the pretty southern neighborhoods, and eventually we would always end up at P.F. Chang’s (Robert’s favorite) for dinner!!

This day was just like any of our normal day trips, so I didn’t think anything of it! I always thought that I would be able to tell when Robert was going to propose…at that time we had been dating for over 5 years, and I thought I could read him like a book ;) But he was as cool as a cucumber all day long, so I had no idea what was coming! We shopped & explored all day and then had dinner at P.F. Chang’s. This was around the time that I was really starting to love photography, so after dinner, Robert asked me if I would want to walk around a garden and take a few photos. Okay at this point, I have to admit, I was a little curious. In my head I went back over the whole day, though, and realized that nothing had been out of the ordinary, so I totally dismissed the ‘hmm something is up’ thought!! Plus it was SO sweet that Robert wanted to walk through a garden with me and that he was indulging my love of photography!

We arrived at the garden and it was beautiful! It was a little bit chilly, because it was the end of March, but in because we were in North Carolina, things had begun to bloom! We wandered around the garden while the sun was setting, and Robert led me back to a more private part of the garden to set up his tripod & take some photos of us! After he snapped a few shots, he walked over to the camera to ‘change a few settings’ (really, he was turning on the video)! Me, being typical me, pointed out that there was a red light flashing on the camera, and that probably wasn’t the right if he wanted to take a photo. HA! Way to ruin the moment, Ashley! ;) After that Robert walked over & took my hands and told me that he wanted me to always be a part of his life. In my head I was thinking “OH MY GOODNESS...IS THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENING!?!?!” Then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him!!!! (cue the squeals!!!) Meanwhile his camera was capturing EVERYTHING, so we have that moment recorded to treasure forever!

After lots of hugs and kisses, Robert snapped a few more shots!! Something you might not know about me is that I am super sentimental…I love keeping notes Robert has written me, holding on to little things from places we’ve traveled, and taking pictures of EVERYTHING so we can look back and reminisce! Robert, knowing this, made sure to get it all on camera, and that just makes my heart smile so big!

When we finally left the park (it was almost dark!), we were frozen, but still went for frozen yogurt anyway, because it is my favorite! Then with the heat blasting in the car, eating spoonfuls of frozen yogurt, and me glancing at my new beautiful ring every 5 seconds, we started our drive home!! We spent the majority of the drive making oodles of phone calls to family & friends, and it was so much fun to share the news & the story with our loved ones!

Here are a few of my favorite photos from that evening :)

AND...here are some of my favorites from our engagement session with the amazing Katelyn James!! Y'all, the best thing about Katelyn is that her heart is even more beautiful than her work! :)