Sydney & Nathan
SydneyRebenstorf
&NathanChokey
September72024
Strawberry, AZ
Our Story
How We Met
If you're reading this, then you probably know how we met. But what most of you may not know is how we made our relationship "official". It was January 2013 and Nathan and I were at a friends house celebrating her birthday. At this point we had been "talking" for a few weeks a.k.a. texting & snapchatting like 16-17 year olds do. But this particular night we were sitting next to each other on the couch talking when I received a text from Nathan (yes, he was right next to me) and the text said, "d8 me?" Being me, I looked at him, smirked and immediately responded "no". We looked at each other and laughed but it wasn't until the next day when I had to ask him if he was being serious or not to which he responded; "it depends on your answer". Clever...leaving the ball in my court. Anyway, you can probably guess what my answer was because 11 years later here we are and I still love to make fun of him for asking me out over text.
The Proposal
It took me awhile to figure out how I was going to propose. I asked her friends for help and we brainstormed multiple different locations and how to get Sydney to said locations. The one that seemed the most plausible was the Superstition mountains even though Sydney doesn't hike lol. Nicole, Victoria, and I tried to think of ways to convince Sydney that she randomly needed to go out to the mountains at sunset without giving it away. We wound up having Nicole call Sydney and tell her was doing her engagement photos out at the mountains & needed someone to hold her dogs for the photos they weren't in (this made sense to Syd considering Nicole's dog likes a total of 4 people & Syd is one of them). Nicole also told her in return, they'd take us out to dinner in hopes she'd would dress accordingly.
I knew after Nicole called her, she would immediately call me to ask if we could do it so I "begrudgingly agreed" to sell it. It was the perfect plan only one problem... I got off work early and we went to the Cubs spring training game. We had friends and family at the game and they all knew what was happening that night so safe to say Syd got a littttttle bit buzzed.
Once we left the game we got home around 3:30 and straight to bed she went. We we're supposed to meet Nicole at 5:15 and it was a good 30 minute drive so I woke her up at 4:40 and told her she had 5 minutes to get dressed. At this point, she started questioning why she had to change out of her cubs sweatshirt and leggings to go hold dogs...I reminded about dinner but she fired back with, "they can't bring the dogs to dinner so don't you think we'll come home first?" (Good point). Slightly panicked, I just yelled "I don't know but we're already late so please just get dressed!". Thankfully she was still a little tipsy and half asleep so she had no energy to argue. A couple minutes later she came out in all black outfit with white sneakers and said "okay I'm ready". I slowly looked her up & down, internally laughing because, of course she chose to wear all black and I said "okay, let's go".
30 minutes later we arrived at the location and started "looking for Nicole". In true Sydney fashion, she was walking 10 steps ahead of me so it wasn't until I had to physically pull her over to a pathway of rose petals that she realized what was happening. Up ahead, was a blanket with photos, champagne, insane mountain views behind it and to top it off, a sign that read "d8 me forever?"
Following the proposal, we went to a rooftop bar in Downtown Gilbert where I surprised her with over 60 of our closest friends & family waiting there to celebrate with us. It was one of the most memorable nights for us and I am glad to FINALLY be marrying this woman.