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JOS Photographers
Previous MomentJOS
Our Love Story
JOS and TREE love story
Our 7th date ended up in Buenos Aires Argentina exploring tango dancing
So, I had been planning this proposal for a long time, many strategies and hidden ideas from Tree. My best friend Danny DeSurra and I carefully planned a way for me to propose to Tree on a private beach in Italy.
Danny happened to be going to Italy with his wife Zoe at a slow food conference the same set of days we were to be in Italy!
Danny offered to sneak into our room in our village while Tree and I were on a hike going the opposite direction. He grabbed my big camera, snuck back on the train and went to his village.
This was a huge feat since international text messaging failed between our phones. Our backup plan was for me to scatter notes around the village in order for me to communicate to Danny about where our room was in the village (you can't pre-book these kinds of rooms).
I scattered 7 scribbled notes all over the center square, including one translated in Italian (this was a huge task hiding my note writing from Tree), hoping he would find directions to our room and be able to retrieve the camera as planned.
With the camera, he and his wife climbed down cliffs to get to a private beach where they setup a special private picnic lunch on a rock out in the ocean.
RISERVATO... was the sign posted on the rock with a beautiful cloth, champagne bottle, chocolates, fruit, olives, bread, cheese, love notes, and much more. SO.... Tree and I came back to our village, went to our room as Tree wanted to get a coat, which made me very nervous because I thought Danny might be in the room, but when we arrived in the room he was not there. And... the camera was gone!!! So at that point I knew he got it.
And I was on..... on for the spot light walk toward the other village. Danny and I planned to color coordinate the path with ribbon codes telling me where to turn: red meant right, green meant left, white meant forward.
He and his wife Zoe, who was 7 months pregnant tagged a path all the way down a series of cliffs and shrubs and loose gravel wayyyy down to a private beach... I took Tree down this path and she hesitated... with a lot of resistance, but I persisted. She told me, "No, I can't go down this path! I thought we were going to the other village for dinner? Then we went back up and I let her rest.
I said, "Wait,.... I'll go down and check it out, scope it. And turned around and left... I ran down this steep gnarly path 1500 yards until I finally found another color coded ribbon!!! I wasn't sure if I was on the right path, but this confirmed I was. I then ran back up the cliff (thinking what am I going to do to convince her to come down here????) to Tree and said, "Hey... how are ya?" She said, "Does it get worse?" I said, "About the same, but it gets better and we can go slow.... You know Tree... I've prepared something very special for us down there and we HAVE to go. We can go slow and I will help you. However long it takes we can just take our time, the sun is beautifully setting and it will be something we can remember the rest of our lives." She agreed. I said, "Think of this as a is a metaphor for our relationship...." and smiled... We went all the way down, then I lead her to the edge... where we looked out over the ocean. She saw the beach and also what appeared, from a distance, to be a pile of junk on a rock, but I looked closer because there was a bottle in the middle of what appeared to look like garbage. :) This was the rock in the ocean that we climbed out too.... and I very gradually started to share with Tree my thoughts and feelings.... just as the warm golden light of sun was setting over the ocean... Magic was in the aire...”
“So Tree... here we are watching a very special sunset. This is an hour that you and I own together. Here and now I want to acknowledge where we stand. You and I have found ourselves here in this moment standing on this part of the earth together alone. I find it magical that out of all of all of history we find ourselves at this specific point in time looking into each others eyes. Our feet have found each other. The words we speak and actions we take today toward one another are important because they will greatly influence our future.
One day we will look back and feed upon this moment and smile with each other and feel even more than we would have ever imagined. Let’s drink in this moment, breathe in this light.... because the time is ripe... and I love you with all my heart. We are mature and have gone through a lot alone, woven our way through many mazes, and I believe we are prepared to go deeper than ever before. We know who we are as individuals and there is no question we beautifully ebb and flow. I love how we see through the layers of our imperfections with trust, laughter and build each other up. You are a beautiful light and I believe we make an even stronger light together.
So I’m going to do something I never imagined I would do, I’m going to get down on my knee... Tree... I want to spend the rest of my life with you... I want to build our life together. I want each of us to be better because of each other. This ring carries the vibrations of my parents, and I want to add our own vibrations to it here and now from this space and time so it resonates with the power of our love and life together. Let’s make our own design with this metal and stones I’ve dug from the earth, and design our life together. Will you spend your life with me?"
