The Proposal
Built giant 8ft tall illuminated letters and brought them up a mountain.
Overview
Now this page is going to be way more detailed than the rest of the project, milestone, and event pages.
There were so many moving parts to this and things to balance and I want to show it all. Now I can't give every single detail, but I will give as much as I can. Now where to start? How about, the first night of testing.
I knew I wanted to propose to Erin, so the question became how to do it? The thought of building giant letters came to mind, so I decided to see what it would take to do that.
With some cardboard boxes, tape, and some paint, I was able to make an "M". Now one question comes to mind when you want to make giant letters: "Where am I going to put them?"
Luckily I knew a special spot. Jumping back a couple of months, I had surprised Erin with what we called "The Mountain Top Date". I had some friends help me set up a romantic dinner that looked over Colorado Springs.
Funny enough, this wasn't the original spot. There was a larger open area that was lower on the mountain, but that night, there were other people parked there so we had to find a new spot. This one ended up being higher, more secluded, and perfect for the actual proposal later on.
This dinner was the first time I told her that I loved her and it became a special place for us.
Now our special spot could actually see the original spot quite easily, and the area was way larger. The perfect spot to place giant letters.
For reference in the picture, the "M" is leaning against my Honda CRV which you can barely see!
Now seeing how good just that "M" looked, I knew I could make it work. The plan was to simply make 'MARRY ME?'. Now, from testing, I knew with the wind and the size of the letters, I couldn't just have some small supports for cardboard.
I decided I would make frames for the letters out of wood and then cover them in cardboard. I am not made of money, so I could not just go to Home Depot and buy all of the resources needed.
For weeks I was able to find Facebook Marketplace posts of people getting rid of wood for free. My friend's work was also getting rid of a ton of cardboard boxes.
Onto building the actual letters! I would not be able to transport the letters if they were one solid piece, so I had to come up with a way to make them in smaller pieces that could be put together.
I planned out each letter in advance to make as many rectangular pieces as possible to minimize cuts, store efficiently, and so I could stack them on my car for transporting.
If I am going to build giant letters, how am I going to hide them from Erin? Luckily I have awesome friends and one of them let me basically take over his garage for months.
I was able to go over anytime to work in the driveway, then store everything in his garage.
Yes, I said months. Luckily I started this project plenty of time in advance because it took way longer than I thought and I had a deadline to make.
One of the main bottlenecks of this project was that I had 1 saw, 2 drills, and 3 batteries.
A lot of the wood I got was large planks that needed to be cut down into smaller pieces. Well, it would take pretty much all 3 batteries to just to cut enough wood to make one letter.
I had to start planning and being strategic with my time whenever I went over to the house to work. I needed to juggle how many batteries to use to cut wood, what batteries can be used to build, how to always have a battery charging, and having enough frames ready to staple cardboard then paint.
My friends were also a huge help with anything I needed while building the letters. Whether it was stapling cardboard, painting, or cleaning up.
Now that some real letters were built, I needed to do one final test. I loaded some on my car and drove out to the spot. Would they work? Were they big enough?
One thing I haven't mentioned is that I would have to drive past the spot the letters would be in order to get to the spot I would propose. So I also needed to see if you would notice the letters flat on the ground while driving by.
The plan would be to have my friends stand the letters up once our car was out of sight.
After many weekends and many hours of work, the letters were finally done! Just in time too, because the proposal was the next day.
Now, for a quick side note, I need to explain my plan to still make this a surprise. You see, I can't just tell my girlfriend to get her nails done, dress up nice, and come with me to the place I told her I loved her without her figuring out what was going on.
You see, Reba here had just flown in from Florida and she was my distraction for the weekend. I had made a joke years earlier to Reba that I would kidnap her one day. Little did she know I was serious, and I finally found the perfect opportunity to do it.
This was fully a surprise for Reba as well. I orchestrated a whole plan to get her out of work, pack a bag, and get her on a plane. Once she landed, I explained that we would have a fun weekend, but that she was also here to help me with a proposal.
Erin knew Reba was coming which made it the perfect distraction for any out of the normal plans.
Erin and I "had no plans" for while Reba was in town (Ha!) and said we would leave it all up to her once she got here. But once Reba landed, her and I started planting little ideas here and there to help make the weekend feel natural.
'Oh, Reba would love a photoshoot in the mountains? We did say we would do whatever Reba wanted!'.
'Yea, Garden of the Gods is a must see! Oh, you think we could do a photoshoot there? That is a great idea!'.
'You want to do a girls day with just you and Reba? By all means, go for it!'.
'You want to look nice for the photoshoot so you and her are going to get your nails done? Sounds good!'.
Today is the day! While Erin and Reba were off doing their girls day, I woke up early to pack my car and drive to the spot. It took two trips and very careful driving haha.
I began building the letters with the help of friends. The last bit to take care of was to make sure the area where the letters were was blocked off by cars Erin didn't know.
The plan was for the fake photoshoot to be where the letters were because that is honestly the only spot that makes sense because it has space. We would make an excuse to keep going up the mountain because "other people are already there".
Erin's parents and my best friend flew out to support me and surprise her after the proposal. So we lined their rental cars up to block the letters and parked our friends' cars that she knew up the road to where we would need to get out and hike up a small path to the proposal spot.
But now it was go time! I needed to leave to get ready for this photo shoot and pick Erin up.
I picked her up and we stopped at Balancing Rock in Garden of the Gods as a final checkpoint. We are a 10 minute drive below the proposal spot. Erin doesn't know it, but I am on the phone making sure everything is good to go.
Letters are flat, people are hiding, and we are good to drive up the mountain.
All we need to do is make a planned excuse for Reba to get in a different car, for me to drive ahead of that car and pull away just enough, and to make a fake phone call while driving to explain that there are already people at the photoshoot location so we have to go higher up.
Everything went perfectly and she said yes! She absolutely didn't see it coming which was a huge win.
After we had a moment, her parents came out of hiding (notice the dirt on her dads jacket in the video from laying down in the brush haha) and made the moment even more special for her.
Afterwards, we joined our friends back at the letters to celebrate together!
