NOTE: This post is copied directly from Jon's and my wedding site (theknot.com/kleinpartyof2), where I decided to write everything in the third person for whatever reason. If I read this later and feel that's just incredibly weird, I'll happily adjust the post. ;) Consider your self warned.
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While Jon does usually keep the specifics of dates a secret, he occasionally lets Dani in on all his plans. This was the case for the date he set for the evening of October 6, 2016. Okay, he told Danielle they were going to one secret location for a game, then out for dinner, then for a night hike to end with stargazing. What he didn't tell her turned out to be his biggest and best surprise yet!
The game was set at a local antique market, and the rules were that each had to find a small gift for the other that somehow reminded them of the other. After wandering around together, they split up and found their gifts, which were paid for and quickly wrapped up in their own small paper bags (gifts should be unwrapped, right?).
Dinner should have been a big clue of what was coming, but Dani isn't always the fastest to pick up clues, like the fact that Jon took her to the Olive Garden, where they had only been once before - on their first date. Jon did take the precaution of eating as much food as he could, because he remembered a friend who had been so nervous about proposing that he barely ate after ordering his favorite food, thereby tipping off his soon-to-be fianceé. Anyway, the dinner was delicious, the conversation was pleasant, and Danielle was oblivious. They opened their gifts: Jon received a rubber "to:/from:" stamp because of al the letters he writes, and Danielle received a silver snowflake necklace because of how excited she gets whenever it snows and for the memory of hiking together through the snow.
After dinner the two changed into warmer clothes suited to a cold night hike, and Jon got a picnic blanket and thermos of hot apple cider ready. The drove to Glen Eyrie and hiked along in the dark, letting their eyes adjust to see the stars better. God miraculously cleared away the clouds that had lingered around for several days just enough that the clearing Jon and Dani were headed for had a perfect view for stargazing! Before reaching he clearing, Jon asked Danielle to wait while he got the blanked and things set up. (As it turned out, the "and stuff" meant turning on his GoPro camera, which was cleverly hidden in a tree.)
Danielle has always loved watching the night sky, and was perfectly content sitting with the man she loves and enjoying God's magnificent creation with him. When Jon stood up, she assumed he was moving to a spot with a clearer view of one constellation or another, and stood to join him. That wasn't his plan. Instead, Jon took her hands and asked her to close her eyes and promise she wouldn't peek. When he was satisfied, he moved away and made his way around the clearing (switching on the candles he had set in place hours earlier). As he moved he started talking about what he had learned in his and Danielle's study of 1 Corinthians 13. He told her how much he had learned about loving her, and about how he was struggling with the last part of the love chapter, "love never fails," or "love never ends" because while wonderful, their relationship lacked that kind of permanence and commitment. At his point, he took her hands in his again, asked her to open her eyes, and knelt on one knee.
Danielle had noticed a gradually growing light through her closed eyelids, and (finally!) started to wonder if Jon was about to propose! By the time he was kneeling in front of her, she was trembling (she was too well bundled up to be shivering) and feeling completely giddy.
The the words finally came - the only part of Jon's wonderful, perfect proposal that she would truly be able to recall later.
"Danielle Ashton Sadlo, will you marry me?"
She would have responded verbally right away if her brain would just cooperate... But evidently Jon knew he had the answer he wanted when he saw her huge smile and felt the way she hugged him, because evidently he didn't actually hear her reresponse when it came! Maybe half an hour later, when they were hiking back to the car, Jon suddenly froze in his tracks and spun around to face Danielle, and asked, "You did say 'yes,' right??" Danielle laughed and told him, "I said,
'Yes, of course, Jon Klein!'"
