A tale of two love birds: engagement story
Senior business major Ryan Grentz sweeps his new fiance, Rachel Peppel, senior nursing major, quite literally off her feet. | PC: Zach Morrison
Looking around this college campus at all the couples forming, it’s hard to imagine any of them being ready for marriage. We’re kids!
Still, a select few are ready and mature enough to take the plunge. One such couple is Ryan Grentz and Rachel Peppel, both seniors graduating in May. Not only is this couple engaged but it happened in the most romantic fairytale way ever.
Once upon a time, the summer before high school, a boy and a girl met for the first time. Fast forward to college, this same boy and girl have somehow become best friends in the span of one semester. This alone was something special.
“It takes me a really long time to connect,” says Rachel, a shy nursing student. “The fact we became so close so fast was not normal for me.”
They dated for two years before Ryan, a strategic business major, decided to pop the question. Once he asked for permission to propose, the planning began!
“We make random little videos together all the time so I wanted to record steps of the whole process,” Ryan says. “I left school this summer already taking videos of me planning.”
The plan was simple: surprise Rachel with a trip to her dream destination (New York City) and propose at the top of the Rockefeller Center. Easy right?!
Ryan planned out each detail to the T. He wrote cheesy dramatic letters outlining each step of the surprise, reminiscent of their first date. The first letter, delivered by a friend at work and containing a plane ticket to NYC, instantly tipped Rachel off to the enormity of the day.
Following their engagement, the couple documented their treasured moment. PC: Rachel Peppel
It read, “Today is a special day. You’re about to embark on what I hope is the best day of your life.”
Ryan placed QR codes in some letters for Rachel to scan at certain points of her trip. The codes led to a song and also helped him know where she was in the process. He also set up a fake phone number and texted her all day as “Steven,” Ryan’s friend from work who would be her liaison.
Upon arriving in NYC, Rachel quickly curled her hair in the airport bathroom and was whisked away to the Rockefeller Center. She was escorted like royalty to the top of the building, where Ryan waited alone on a balcony cleared just for them.
With the sunset on one side and crazy tourists taking their picture on the other, Ryan proposed.
Rachel didn’t think she would cry during the proposal. She was wrong.
“He was so nervous. I barely remember anything he said,” she recalls. “All I remember him saying is ‘You’re my best friend’.”
She said yes.
“I honestly think they’re a good fit,” says Isaac Griffith, a good friend of the couple. “Becoming best friends in less than six months? That kind of proves it was meant to be.”
Another friend, Dimas Waaran, shares similar opinions. “Couple goals,” he says. “I wish I could be in a relationship like them. Or with them. A relationship with them.”
Ryan and Rachel plan to get married in May 2017, don’t like using the word ‘fiancé” and worry Rachel Grentz doesn’t sound good. But it’s safe to assume the wedding, like their proposal, will be a fairytale.
Katie Morrison is a senior studying business administration.