My stomach feels weird and my mind is racing as we pull into the parking lot. I find a space to park, but as soon as we do I have second thoughts.

“Do you think we can park here? I don’t want to get towed.” I ask her before getting out of the Mercedes.

“Yea, I don’t think anyone will care, baby. We should be okay” She smiles back at me.

She’s so happy and excited for our date night..she has no idea.

We get out, grab our cooler backpack with the wine and glasses, and start walking. I can hear her talking, but all I can think about is making sure this goes perfectly. I really don’t want tonight to end with my car in a tow lot somewhere. I also don’t want to be stressed tonight, not for this. I try to push it out of my mind and tell myself it will all be fine.

“Baby” She pulls me out of my thoughts “Do you want to move your car?”

“What?” was she reading my mind? what is this?

“I don’t want you to be stressed about this, and we’re super early. We have time. We can move it if you want.” She’s stopped walking and turned to face me.

God she knows me so well. What a sweetheart. “Are you sure? Yea lets just move it to this lot over here really quick”.

We hop back in the car and move it to a more secure parking lot, then restart our walk down to the docks. We’re about 10 minutes early for our Gondolla ride appointment. Luckily the weather is pretty nice. While we wait I go over it all in my head. Where is the ring located, where is the corkscrew, how far into the ride do I pull it out. What am I going to say. I have rehearsed it in my head about a dozen times today. I want this to be perfect.

The Gondola pulls up and we climb inside. I feel and instense hot waive of excitement wash over me. When we climb back out of this boat, we will no longer be boyfriend and girlfriend. I am so excited to finally get this ring on her finger. We snap a few photos and make small talk with the gondolier before taking off into the river. Next to me, she is all smiles and excited energy. I can’t help but think how perfect this is.

“God this is so beautiful. Thank you so much for booking this, baby. It’s so sweet, and I love you so much” She looks at me all sweet eyes and giddy joy, and I know that was my opening. This is my moment. Here we go…