A Long's Proposal Story: Jessica and Garrick

A picturesque proposal while vacationing abroad! Read on to see how Garrick surprised Jessica with her stunning, new ring while traveling in Italy. On behalf of the entire Long's team, congratulations and best of luck.

How did the two of you meet?

"Garrick and I met during our freshmen year at Worcester State University through mutual friends."

Photos by Paolo Ferrera Studio

How did he propose?

"It all started with a conversation of where to go on vacation. After weeks of annoying Garrick on where we should go, and crossing my fingers he said somewhere on a tropical island, he stated, "I think we need to go to Italy." Italy is a huge part of my life as my father was born in Italy and more than half of my family still live there. The last time I had been to Italy was 10 years ago, and Garrick had never been in the 8 years we had been dating. Although I wanted a vacation that was just us, I was thrilled to know that he wanted to travel to Italy to meet my family and give me the opportunity to see them.

Fast forward to months later and we are on a plane to Italy with my mom and dad! Once there we planned on meeting up with my sister and her best friend who had already been there for 2 weeks.

With every single day being packed with things to do, and with the language barrier between my family being hard to understand, I was very distracted from anything that may have been going on in the background, which normally would have seemed strange to me. A few days into the trip, we decided to go out and celebrate my sister’s friend's last night in Italy, as she was leaving to go back home early. We all got ready, put on fancy outfits, and out the door we went.

As we arrived into town, my family suggested starting the evening off by grabbing a drink (or two!) before dinner at this small café right down the street from a spot that had breath taking views. Before I could find a seat, Garrick suggested we head up to the spot so that we could take pictures before the sun went down. My family suggested we go without them as they didn’t want to lose the table we just got at the bar so we left saying we wouldn’t be long at all …

Walking up to the spot, nothing seemed out of the ordinary to me. It actually was quite peaceful to just get away from everything for a couple of minutes and have it just be us. As we approached the spot, there wasn’t a person to be seen up there other than one gentleman taking pictures of “the view." We found the perfect spot to stop walking, and proceeded to take tons of pictures of the view and, of course, a couple of selfies. Before I could start heading down the street back to where my family was, Garrick pulled my arm and turned me around to face him. In what felt like slow motion, Garrick got down on one knee and my heart started to race. It was the moment I had been waiting for, for 8 years and of course screamed YES! It felt like a fairytale. I looked down at my left hand in awe. I was staring at the perfect ring from the most perfect man. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with him. "

Tell us about the engagement ring!

"The ring is absolutely perfect, unique and timeless. It has a twisted band, something no one I know has, making it feel as if it was made just for me."