Val and I met at the end of 2016 when I went to a local Akron college bar. Val was standing at the door by the bouncer and said hi to my friend Rachel who he happened to also be friends with. He didn't say hi to me but instead made a joke about my pink hair. Afterwards, Rachel and I left to go to a different bar and she sent him my number. We were officially a couple about 6 months later. Fast forward 5 years and Val planned our 5 year anniversary at the Cleveland Botanical Garden and then dinner. Originally it was a surprise but I annoyed him to the point of telling me the general plan lol. The weather was not great that day and not much was blooming, so I was moving pretty quickly during the walk. He kept taking his sweet ol' time taking pictures of nothing and about 300 pictures of a bunny. I found that odd, but did not think anything of it. When we got to the greenhouse we went upstairs where there was a big tree. We stopped to look at the view and he started taking something out of his pocket. My friend Joe popped out from behind the tree and started snapping pictures. It still didn't register what was happening. All I remember from the proposal was that he said I am a very difficult person to plan for - LOL.