I liked it . . . so I put a ring on it

Two months.

That’s how long it has been since I took Beyonce’s advice and put a ring on it.

The it, of course, was the finger of Kendall Perry, who will soon be my wife. I proposed on Friday, Feb. 13, 2015 (yes, I proposed on Friday the 13th . . . I think that’s awesome), and she said yes! I feel truly blessed to have her in my life. I can’t wait to spend the rest of it with her. She’s so smart and funny, and life is simply more enjoyable when she is around. As of July 2015, she will be Mrs. Vogts.

We had been dating since November 2013, and things never ceased to be amazing. I think we both knew early on that we were going to be together forever, but we took our time getting to know each other. Our love grew every day. She, much like me in my full-time life, is an English teacher, so we are a pretty solid match. In fact, we met when she was student teaching at the school I teach at. Don’t worry, though, she wasn’t MY student teacher. She was working with another English teacher in my building.

So you might be wondering how I proposed. Well, she was on high alert. She was looking for it to happen because we’d browsed various engagement ring options (in fact, she frisked me one night because she thought I had gone to pick up a ring she thought I had purchased . . . she was right as I had picked it up that evening, but I had already hid it; it was a close call), so I had to be sneaky. Since I am a mobile dj on the weekends and had to dj on Valentine’s Day, we decided to go celebrate the night before, which happened to be Friday the 13th. I already had the ring, so I decided to take advantage of the fact her guard might have been down a bit. I showed up to her house to pick her up with the ring sitting in the passenger’s seat. It was hidden behind a Valentine’s Day card and a single-stem rose.

After I went into her apartment to usher her out to the car for our date, I let her open her own door. Not because chivalry is dead, but because I wanted her to find my big surprise, which she did . . . after a while. First she looked at the card and the rose. Then she noticed the ring box. She picked it up and asked what it was. I answered by telling her to give it to me. She said no, but I took from her anyway. I got down on one knee and opened the box while making the speech I had worked out (it was short and sweet and to the point).

She was totally taken by surprise. She had to sit down on the car seat. Then, after some prodding, she said yes. Then she cried when she found out I had asked her father for his blessing.

It was a pretty great reaction, and I’m just glad she said yes. 😉

The funny thing about the whole event was that her students had been sneaky all day. Without her knowledge, they created a video, which they sent to me, explaining why I should propose to her. I received it just before I got to Kendall’s house and proposed. It’s a pretty cute video, which I have included here:

This is a pretty exciting time in my life, and I will be sure to share more of it with you as things progress. In the meantime, I invite you to check out the blog Kendall and I started to chronicle not only our pending nuptials but our lives as a married couple. You can find it here: toddandkendall.com.

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About toddvogts 833 Articles
Todd R. Vogts, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of media at Sterling College in Kansas. Previously, he taught yearbook, newspaper, newsmagazine, and online journalism in various Kansas high schools, and he ran a weekly newspaper in rural Kansas. He continues to freelance as a professional journalist from time to time. Also, Vogts is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the Journalism Education Association (JEA), and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), among others. He earned his Master Journalism Educator (MJE) certification from JEA in 2022. When he’s not teaching or writing, he runs his mobile disk jockey service and takes part in other entrepreneurial ventures. He can be reached at twitter.com/toddvogts or via his website at www.toddvogts.com.

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