On Friday, October 9, 2015 I asked Maria, my love, to marry me. The evening started with a quick trip to Whole Foods at the Quarry.  Whole Foods was the very first place we spent time together, ate lunch together over three years ago, and where I began to fall in love with Maria.

When we left Whole Foods, we headed downtown towards the Pearl and Downtown San Antonio. Maria had mentioned in the weeks earlier that she thought Hotel Emma at The Historic Pearl would be a romantic place for a proposal.  As we got close to the exit for The Historic Pearl, Maria kept telling me we were going to miss our exit.  Little did she know that exit was not included in the adventure I had in store for us that night.

I wanted to take Maria down memory lane on our first date.  On our first date we had dinner at Tre Trattoria and walked on both the downtown street and Riverwalk levels.  For convenience purposes, I decided to park at the Grand Hyatt. As we approached the parking gate, Maria mentioned “you didn’t surprise me with a stay at the Grand Hyatt, did you?” I sweated a little and jokingly responded, “ I don’t know, you’ll see if I enter as a hotel guest or visitor.” When I didn’t enter as a hotel guest, I was able to throw her off the trail.  We then walked out of the Grand Hyatt and walked past Hemisfair to The Fairmount Hotel, the former home to Tre Trattoria.

We then walked through La Villita, down to Riverwalk level, to a bench on the San Antonio River where we sat on our first date.  Maria later told me she was 99.9% sure I was planning on proposing there.  As we approached the bench a group of three men were sitting on the bench, so it was obvious that I couldn’t propose there. Maria asked, “Where are we going to go now? I went along and said “I don’t know, let me scramble to find another location”.  We turned around and started walking back towards the Grand Hyatt.  Little did she know, I didn’t have any intention of proposing to her there; I had a surprise waiting for her around the corner.  Maria had a pretty good idea that I was planning on asking her a very important question, so while we were walking back along the Riverwalk, I kept saying things like “it’s ok, I just have to figure out another plan”.  We got back to the Grand Hyatt and walked back through the lobby, but instead of taking the elevators to the parking garage we took them to the 21^st floor.  On the 21^st floor, I walked Maria all the way to the very end of the hallway and opened the curtains on the window.  While we were looking out the window, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a key that opened the door to room 2174.  As I brought her inside, she had a rare speechless moment as she slowly took in all the flowers I had arranged for her.  As she stood there speechless…

… I knelt down on one knee, pulled out the box I had in my coat pocket, and asked, “ Maria, Will you marry me?” Maria looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Yes, of course!”