Ben and Ella

Four years and 3 kids after starting our romance, my prince proposed! Ben and I met late 2008 through a mutual friend at our local Irish pub. A few months after our ‘friendship’ had more than blossomed; I sent him a text message on Feb 7th 2009 saying “okay, you can be my boyfriend” or something of the sort anyway… in 2012 with two kids and one on the way I didn’t actually expect a proposal any time soon, though as any girl would, I dreamed of one. Christmas Day I opened a beautifully wrapped little present under our tree. In it was a ring to go on my left finger that came with the promise of 2013 being a year “for us”.

Needless to say I was quite excited for the New Year! At the very start of the year I woke to find our child’s blackboard written all over. Ben had left for work but, not before leaving me a message to say that this proposal was not going to be a quick process. He had planned it all! He had said 2013 would be the year we got engaged.. and he had me thinking he was going to use all the time he had at his disposal. He was going to leave me little clues and puzzles along the way. Ben had never sent me anything in the mail but first there was a love letter in the mail. Next, Ben had filled the roof with hanging bits of card (much like the flying keys scene in Harry Potter) that gave me a website to go to “www.benandella.com” which at the time was set up with a clock ticking over. Just in case I didn’t know how long I had been waiting. I now had this little clock to remind me!

Over the first couple of months Ben left lots of little love notes and hints to the big day and reminders of our past together. A full list of the surprises are on our couples site mentioned before for those interested! Finally, March hit! Ben needed to get more creative. I awoke to find my son had somehow changed during the night into a new t-shirt. The front read “Daddy told me a secret. shhh! Don’t tell him I told you.” The back read “He has something sparkly for you.” Gee.. I wonder what that could mean! On March 9th 2013 It all finally happened. Ben had me believing we were off for a normal day visiting and shopping. We stopped into Warrandyte (Vic) to take a walk along the Yarra. Warrandyte is a very important place to us. At a certain point Ben ran ahead to “check the traffic” a poor excuse I should have seen straight through.

After a bit of waiting and getting slightly antsy; A friend of Ben’s started to walk towards me holding a CD player. He set it down beside where I was waiting and pressed play. The tears started at that point! The song we had already picked out for our first dance was playing. I looked around and saw Ben walking towards me with a new change of clothes and a massive bouquet of 30 pink roses in all shades. He got down on 1 knee and people stopped walking by to watch the show. I cried, he pretended he wasn’t and I said yes! He even had another friend in the background taking pictures of the moment. It wasn’t until a good 10 minutes later I realised I hadn’t even looked at the ring yet! He had also arranged for both of our parents to be waiting at a point in Warrandyte that is my favourite place on earth. I was so happy to see them and share the moment with them! We all went off to the pub for a huge lunch. We are now planning a beautifully rustic country wedding at Gum Gully Farm in Silvan Vic. Feb 7th we will hopefully be married under a canopy of kiwi vines and have everyone we love there to clap and cheer! Our photographer, Mike Semple, captures the beauty of a moment so perfectly and we cant wait to see what magic he can work on the big day. We really wanted to capture the spirit of our wedding in our country engagement photos and he was just simply spot on.

Images by Mike Semple

Ms Gingham says: What a beautiful story. I can’t wait to see how the wedding all comes together!

Ella says: I’m a 24 year old mum of 2 beautiful boys. Obviously engaged 🙂 Dreaming of going to pastry school and running my own little boutique patisserie.