Seth and I met in fall of 2005. Not much happened at that point, and I am pretty sure I told him I wanted to marry a tall black guy. I suppose that made him think he was out of the question. Seth was in my ward at church, and in the winter semester he became one of my Family Home Evening Brothers. (Part of my Church Single Adult Group). So we saw each other every Monday night, and then a lot more than that. I asked Seth the question: "What do you look for in a girl?" He said, "I want a girl that I'd want my daughters to be like." That was it, I was sold. I chased Seth around for a good 2 months which didn't make sense because I was being asked out on dates with other guys every weekend. But Seth, the one who wouldn't ask me out, was the only one I wanted to go out with. So I went over to his apartment one day and told him there was a concert I wanted to go to and didn’t have anyone to go with. He finally took the bait, and we were officially together a month later in April 2006. A few weeks later Seth left me at BYU Idaho and moved to Kansas to install security alarms for the summer. I sure hated long distance. We both bought our first cell phones, and talked every day for sometimes hours. I met Seth’s family in July and felt right at home. They are wonderful! I knew I was in love with Seth and wanted to make it last forever. We talked about it and Seth felt the same way. We were secretly unofficially engaged, and I was planning our wedding, waiting for the day in September when Seth would meet my parents. In August he got all these crazy ideas in his head like “I’m too young to get married. Marriage is hard. There’s too much responsibility. I like being single. What if there are other girls out there for me?” He told me all this over the phone, and I was devastated. So I stuck with it until October. He told me that he was going to move to another complex with his roommates for the winter. To me that meant that he didn’t want me for a roommate. I cried for 2 weeks, and then decided I was going to be happy with or without him. I gave him an ultimatum: “I know I am going to have a great future, and it is up to you whether or not you are going to be a part of it. I won’t wait for you to make up your mind forever. I am thinking about send in my mission papers.” Little did I know what he had up his sleeve.
He came down a couple weeks later and invited me on a hike. It was autumn, my favorite time of the year, and all the trees in the canyon by Pleasant Grove, UT were beautiful, vibrant colors. We hiked, ate lunch and then headed back down the trail. There was a great waterfall, and Seth took me down to the bottom of it.
Seth: What do you think?
Emily: I think it’s perfect.
S: Perfect for what?
E: You know what it’s perfect for, but I don’t have any control over that.
S: Yeah, but I do…
He got down on his knee, and I almost passed out. Well, no, I didn't. But I was SO SURPRISED!
I turns out that Seth had been planning this whole thing for a couple of weeks, and said the whole 'moving in with my roommates thing,' just to throw me off. Well it worked a little too well. Seth had called my Dad a few days before to ask for my hand in marriage. I had told my Dad the way Seth was playing with my heart, and how sad I was that he wouldn’t make up his mind, and that he was moving in with his roommates. My Dad told Seth, “Well I have a few concerns I’d like to talk with you about…” That sure scared him. Seth explained the whole thing, that it was a surprise plan, and my Dad said OK.
8 months of long distance with my heart being broken every few months. But the day had finally come. He had picked out the ring himself, and it was beautiful! Of course I said yes, and it was official. We were engaged on October 14, 2006.
