Engagement Party, DC Edition

Because we have parents, family, and friends in both DC and NY, Ben and I are honored to be the very lucky recipients of two separate engagement parties. Ben's parents threw us a lovely party over the weekend. All of our local friends were there, and I got to meet Ben's coworkers, as well as some of his relatives I hadn't met before. It also may have been the first time we merged friend groups en masse, though, as we'd all attended Georgetown together, our disparate friend groups aren't exactly perfect strangers.

The party was really nice. Ben's mom had gotten a lot of good food. And then there was a cake. An enormous cake. A delicious, enormous cake.

It was chocolate with, I believe, a buttercream icing, and little silver balls called dragees (according to the ever-knowledgable Lauren!) Ben's dad gave a very sweet toast in which he said nice things about me that I certainly don't deserve, and then we blew out the candles. I've gotta admit, I wasn't expecting candles on an engagement cake! (Ben wished for a championship for the Hoyas; don't worry, I'm going into this with my eyes wide open to the fact that they're his first love!)

We had a wonderful time and want to thank all the friends and family who made it so wonderful!

Surprise!

I have the best friends ever. Last week, on Tuesday night, they threw Ben and I surprise engagement party! My friends Lauren and Andy had been insisting that they wanted to get together with the two of us "for a little toast." When I showed up on the roof of Andy's apartment building after class, I hadn't been expecting anyone except Lauren and Andy to be meeting us. (Or I wouldn't have been, had I not run into another friend on my way in.) Instead, a dozen of our friends were there to surprise us and celebrate with us! Amanda even came up from Richmond just for the night!

Given the very busy fortnight I'd been having when Ben proposed, Spring Break, taking classes after work on most weeknights, and a few weekend-long events like Easter, it had been over a month since we'd gotten engaged, and yet we hadn't seen most of my friends in the interim.

I showed off the ring, they proposed a toast, there was delicious homemade cake (thanks, Lauren!). It was a wonderful evening, and we were thrilled that our friends put it together for us!