Alanna + Ian
I met Alanna when we were freshmen in college, (shout-out California Lutheran University for forcing us together!) I didn’t know her well, but through mutual friends, we decided to live together our sophomore year. We became extremely close, which led to us rooming together our junior year, senior year, and our first year post-grad. You can only imagine how much growth and change we both went through separately, and together during those 4 years. We developed emotionally, mentally, and held each other through the good and the bad.
I have no doubt in my mind that Alanna and I wouldn’t have gotten through those years without each other - she was my rock at times I needed her most. I’d never been one to have a lot of stable friends growing up, but this friendship was sure to stick.
Shortly before moving out of our second post-grad apartment, a guy she grew up with in Kaua’i reached out to her to meet up, he happened to be in the area we were living in (Ventura County) for work. Hesitantly, not wanting to socialize with anyone from high school, she agreed. She came home from the dinner with nothing much to discuss, they’d gone to sushi and he had a variation of my last name - that’s all the info I got.
Fast forward 3 years later… and the friendship sure stuck. Alanna moved back to the island of Kaua’i. We all missed her, but we knew it was what she wanted and what was best for her. I’m not sure how long it was after she moved back, but she told us she was dating someone. (Alanna? Dating someone? Crazy. Absurd.) The someone happened to be none other than her sushi date she went on half a year prior. I’d never met him, but he seemed to be nice and treat her well, (and shared similar last names with me, so he had to be cool, right?)
Moving on to my birthday, June 2021, Alanna surprised me in California to celebrate - along with her new dude. I had never seen her so wrapped up in a person before, it was so fun to see. I was hesitant about him at first, but those feelings quickly went away when I saw how he treated not only Alanna, but my friends and I - people he had just met. He was so kind, such a gentleman, and I couldn’t stop watching them together, I was so happy for her.
As of 2022, they have been dating for almost 3 years, and known each other for several more. Alanna invited us to her birthday on Kaua’i for year 26 of her life, of course I wanted to go, so I started looking at flights but didn’t book anything until I got a group text from her boyfriend, Ian.
He was planning to propose.
I lost my mind, and booked a flight immediately. A month passed and before we knew it, we were on Kaua’i struggling to stay cool as we waited the two days for her birthday to pass so that Ian could get on one knee.
Throughout the week it was rainy and stormy, hot and humid, but we were all just happy to be there. The weather wasn’t ideal for a birthday or proposal in paradise, but we dealt with it as best we could. The day of the proposal was dragging and it was raining off and on - we were all anxious and Alanna was mostly clueless up until the girls were getting ready for our “photoshoot” to commemorate our trip to Kaua’i together. The plan was to steer Alanna towards taking photos at the sunset spot that her and Ian hung out at plenty of times before. Just as we were about to leave, the sky opened up and the sun started pouring through the clouds - if this wasn’t a sign that the stars aligned for this afternoon, I don’t know what was.
The girls piled in the car, all pretty and ready for photos. We’d reached our destination and the view was gorgeous: green grassy cliffs overlooking the ocean, the sun peeking out behind the clouds on the left, making a pinkish-orange glow that was perfect for photos. As we rounded the corner of a building, walking to our designated spot, Ian was standing in the middle of the greenery with a perfectly set-up picnic, and a wooden overhang of plumeria for a backdrop. The first thing I remember as we approached was Alanna screaming, “I figured it out an hour ago,” through giggles and sniffles. As the sun set, Ian popped the question and we all lost it because the best friend we knew and loved had finally found her forever in an incredible human.
If there was ever a perfect 20 minutes for the sun to stay out before dumping rain, it was on October 26th at 5:32 PM.
