Blythe Bartel & Matt Johnson
Our Love Story
On a hot night in July of 2011, I volunteered to be the designated driver for a friends 21st birthday party. When we arrived at the first stop on what was sure to be a wild and crazy night, we ran into a bunch of folks that we went to school with who had graduated. I knew everyone in this group, except one – a tall, blue-eyed man with a few curls. I repeatedly asked my friends who this stranger was, to which they suggested that I just go find out myself. So I did. I walked up to the man that I”m now marrying and tried my best opening line, “Do I know you from somewhere?” Nervous as all get out, we stumbled through our first few minutes of conversation as I realized, and he too realized that, no, we did not know each other from anywhere. Then, he threw me a bone and asked if I frequented a hip bar in town, which I did. We talked almost that whole evening, our friends leaving us. I told him how I’d spend my Friday night looking at Wikipedia’s List of Unusual Deaths (which is actually pretty interesting if you haven’t checked it out) and he didn’t run away. We went on a date a few days later, made out for the first time to Schindler’s List (not a joke) and have been frolicking through life ever since. Also, we did rejoin our parties later in the night, I was successful at my designated driver duties.
The Proposal
We’d been talking about getting engaged for a bit, but my fiance was in the middle of opening a business and I really wanted to wait for the place to open before we launched into wedding planning. Another addition to this story is that Matt wouldn’t be proposing with a ring, he had to find something else. I’d decided awhile ago to have my ring custom made with an heirloom diamond from my grandmother. This diamond is extremely special to me because it was a gift to my grandmother for Valentine’s Day many years ago and my grandparents were married for nearly 40 years before my grandfather passed away. I wanted my engagement ring to have a diamond that had been given with love and represented a strong, amazing marriage. So Matt had his work cut out for him. Apparently he’d been wanting to propose but didn’t know when or how and had finally settled on doing it after a fancyish dinner at a new place in town. Unfortunately for Matt, my body didn’t want to corporate and the week we were suppose to go out for this dinner, I was struck with the flu and not just any old flu, the knock you down, super sweaty, I-thought-I-might-die flu. After a few days of running a fever of 104, Matt and I decided to bag our fancy Friday night dinner. There was no point in going out for a nice meal if I couldn’t taste any of the delicious food and felt awful. Saturday morning Matt comes over to check on me and bring me breakfast. After picking at my food, I went back to bed to rest a bit. Matt came into my bedroom and stirred me from my nap. He kept asking me to roll over, to which I told him that I was sleeping. When I finally accepted, he started saying all these nice things to me and about how he couldn’t wait anymore and then he asked me to be his wife. He pulled out this beautiful necklace and I gladly accepted his offer. My fiance proposed to me when I had a fever, was in my pajamas and sick as a dog and I think that says so much about our relationship and our love. We headed to the jeweler and began working with an amazing jewelry designer, Megan Thorne to create my perfect engagement ring and I couldn’t be happier!