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Zack's proposal to me was over a year in the making. We met at work and had worked together for a couple months but our first date wasn't...

But our first date wasn't until April of last year. We are from Kentucky, so a day at Keeneland (the race track) is a classic social event. He invited me to spend the day with him at the races, and then he wanted to take me to his favorite restaurant for dinner.

The day we were supposed to go, the weather was horrible! It stormed all morning and I was afraid that he would decide to cancel our date. Instead, he showed up right on time and we ended up driving around in the rain for hours that afternoon, talking about everything in the world. It sounds a little silly but looking back, it was one of the most romantic afternoons of my life. We decided to keep our dinner reservations that night and right in the middle of the meal he looked at me and said, "I just figured out how I'm going to propose to you someday."

I, of course, didn't know what to say. I mean, who says something like that--especially on a first date?!? He wasn't even my boyfriend at this point; this was just one day we had spent together. I was a little freaked out and tried to laugh it off and make a joke about what he said, but he was very serious. He could tell I didn't believe him, and that was ok, but he swore that one day he would be able to prove to me that he knew from the beginning that I was the one for him.

Growing up, I always had my own rose garden back home. I love growing roses. When I moved to Lexington to go to school though, I obviously didn't have anywhere to plant them. I had mentioned this to Zack at some point and the day after our first date, he went out, bought a rose bush, and planted it in his backyard for me, so that I would be able to have my very own roses again.

Fast forward to June 15, 2007. I had been out of town for two weeks for work and Zack came over as soon as I got home on Friday evening. We had been talking about moving the rose bush from his yard to mine, because I recently moved into a house with a yard big enough for roses. He suggested that we move the roses that evening, before we left to go on vacation the next week.

I agreed, so we went over to his house and he started to dig up the rose bush. As he dug, the shovel struck something metal, buried right under the roots of the rose. He pulled it out and handed it to me. It was a metal lockbox, wrapped in plastic, and had obviously been underground for a while. Right before Christmas, he had given me a small key and told me to hold onto it, because someday I would need it to unlock something. I had no idea what the key went to, but he had asked me to keep it with me all the time, so I wore it on a chain around my neck.

Of course, the key unlocked this box. I opened it up and inside there was a note that he had written to me when he got home, the night of our very first date. "Lauren, will you marry me." I just stood there starring at it for a minute, completely in shock. I turned around and Zack was down on one knee. "I've loved you from the very beginning and now I can prove it to you. I want to make you happy every day for the rest of your life. Will you marry me?"

I couldn't have envisioned a more perfect proposal. It was just the two of us, alone together in his backyard and it was the most perfect moment of my life. I have no doubt that he is my soul mate, but the fact that he knew it on our first date still awes me. He's wonderful.