Proposal- Third Day Style!

*alternately titled: the longest post ever in which i can't remember a few kind-of important details!*

so over at kelly's korner, they are sharing proposal stories. since ours is so neat, i want to share it with everyone... just in case you haven't heard it! :)

does it make me a bad person if i can't remember the exact date we got engaged? or find the pics? no? ok, good! :) i know it was mid june, 2003. maybe the 13th? (def was the 13th, just verified that!) anywho... here's what i remember. we found out that one of our most fav christian bands- THIRD DAY - was having some habitat for humanity concert in jacksonville, al, at the stadium, and tickets were only 10 bucks. can you saw WoW? so nate and i made plans to go... along with my parents ( i think, see it's awful how bad my memory is 7 years later!) ok not completely sure if they were there, but i know my sis shannon and nate's bro josh, and our good friends jeff and kristi went too. i never thought anything about everyone going, b/c i mean, third day for $10, who doesn't wanna get in on that deal. so we get there, i think it was a friday nite. or maybe sat. who knows! i do remember it was close to 90*, and we were sweating like pigs waiting for the gates to open. it was general admission, and we ran like crazy third day fans and got FRONT ROW SEATS! the nite started out great, just b/c of that! then while third day was singing, nate caught a pick that they threw to the audience. he was so excited! :) they sang a few songs and we were really having a great time. and the next thing i know, i remember them singing "i've always loved you." and for some reason, i looked over at nate, and he was down on one knee, about to propose!!!! he said some really sweet things, and when he asked me to marry him, he totally had dropped the ring (he was SO nervous!) and it was not in the box. so i was all excited, but at the same time, wondered if it was a joke. HA! turns out it was NOT a joke! he picked it up from the concrete :) and there it was, a beautiful sparkling princess cut engagement ring, with diamonds EVERYWHERE!! OMG i was so excited! of course i said YES! (it was at that moment i realized why our fam and friends had come to the concert! :) and why someone was video taping it and taking so many pics! and i am going to try and find those pics soon and post them on here.) * couldn't find pics, but these pictures of my scrapbook (those were the good ol' days, pre-kids, when i actually had TIME to scrapbook. but that's another story for another day!) will have to do... it's better than nothing. PROOF that i'm not making all this up! :) anywho. so hooray, we were engaged! for real, we were gonna get married! how awesome!!! i was completely shocked and it was a moment i will never forget. well, obviously a few details are a little sketchy (date, parents there or not, etc!) ha. ok. but the story doesn't end there. what i didn't know at the time, is nate had been trying to arrange with third day and our local christian music radio station WDJC to be able to get on stage and propose. obviously that didn't happen. but right after he proposed, third day did something that you don't see that often. they said they were gonna have third day karaoke and get 2 people from the audience to sing on stage with them. ok, so we WERE on the front row, remember? and we were all screaming- pick nate, pick nate! we were going crazy up front, and since the whole "propose while on stage with third day" didn't work out, we thought it'd be super cool for nate to SING on stage with third day. so we couldn't believe it when they ACTUALLY picked nate and this other dude (who happened to be named whit, which is pretty funny!) to sing. ok i know i am going everywhere with this story, but i'm trying not to leave out any details. nate had been waiting for them to sing "love song" so that he could propose during that song, but they didn't sing it. so when he was ON STAGE with third day, that's the song he chose to sing. i remember we were all yelling "give him a guitar!" b/c nate didn't sing very often, esp without a guitar. but he got up there and sang his heart out. (i think that actually gave him the confidence to start singing for real, b/c not too long after that he became the worship leader at church!) i was so proud of him, and so freakin excited. but just wait, it gets BETTER! somehow, we convinced the security guards to let ME go up on stage with third day while nate was singing. we told them we had just gotten engaged... AND the next thing i know, i was standing on stage talking with tai anderson, the bassist for third day! * please notice nate and mac shaking hands. awesome huh? and me standing right there by tai! and of course, the BLING! i remember showing him my ring and telling him- we just got engaged like FIVE MINUTES AGO! so he totally interuppted what mac (powell) was saying and told everyone- they just got engaged 5 min ago! so next, they hand ME the mic and asked what happened! i was so shocked that i was like "ummm, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him!" and then mac was like "what'd you say??" and of course i was like " YES!" so they declared nate the big winner for the nite! :) everyone was clapping and cheering and i swear we felt like we were famous! i remember people were talking about us when were going back to the car- like, there's the couple who just got engaged! it was awesome!! so we had our five minutes of fame with third day, AND we were officially engaged... it was such an amazing nite!! seriously, we still talk about it often and replay everything that happened. i'm sure we'd watch the tape too, if we knew where it was! :) nate was so awesome that nite, even though i know he was a nervous wreck. proposing, dropping the ring, THEN singing with third day! :) and even though he had wanted to propose on stage and that didn't work out, god worked out all the little details just right and made our nite perfect! it def goes down as one of the greatest nites ever in our book!!!! too bad i can't remember exactly what nite it was. haha!