The Story of Katie and Brian

Here's the engagement announcement I sent out to some of my family and friends on February 18, 2009. -Brian

Friends,

It seems that wherever I have gone in this world, I have had the good fortune to fall in with the most amazing people a place has to offer. If there can be a downside to such a phenomenon, it is that when I have something especially momentous to share, those people are spread around the globe. So an email will have to do, though I look forward to telling you this story in person.

I have long believed that if you just complain about something long enough, someone will come along and fix it. At the wedding of Mike and Delaine Frasier last July 12, I was acting on this belief by whining to anyone who would listen about the dearth of single women at the event. With a new suit, a song for the ceremony, and a speech for the reception, I was convinced that the sexiest day of my life would be lost on married people. And it would have been if Brenna Proczko had not taken pity on me and called her cousin, Katie Brass.

Whether or not it was the sexiest day of my life is up for debate, but it was certainly the luckiest.

I can scarcely summon the words for what has happened since. Suffice it to say that I found myself amidst such stunning warmth and contentment that it did not take me long to decide I never wanted to be without it again. Where there was confusion, there is now clarity. Where there was doubt, there is now certainty. Where there was chaos, there is now Katie.

Shortly before I was born, my family built a cabin near Keystone, in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I spent the best days of my childhood there and I have always hoped my children would do the same. Though Katie has never lived in South Dakota, that part of the world is important to her family as well. It is so important, in fact, that one year before we met her parents found their own place to spend their best days. As it happens, the land the Brasses bought shares a fence with my family's. Our cabins are two miles apart.

And so it was that Katie and I found ourselves sitting on the old porch swing at my cabin last Saturday, watching snowflakes meander to their destinations among the pines. The moment would have been entirely placid had it not been for pounding of my nervous heart, which I feared my chest might not contain. I did not complain about this, but fixed it myself by kneeling down in front of my girlfriend and standing up in front of my fiance.

As my dearest friends, you know that I can be sentimental and long-winded on the most mundane of occasions, so I hope you'll forgive my excesses here. I just wanted you all to know that your friend, Shep, is so happy he could explode.

Yours,

Shep