Our Fairytale Proposal at Neuschwanstein Castle | Bavaria, Germany Destination Proposal

Ahhhh! I still can’t believe this happened and it’s been 3 weeks now! For years and years, I dreamed of this day… the day Justin would ask me to marry him. But this proposal story probably isn’t going to sound like what you might expect. I know you aren’t supposed to talk about anything but the perfect parts after you get engaged. But I’m way too honest of a person to not tell this story for everything it is. You see, we DO have a fairytale love story… but our fairytale didn’t come along without its own challenges. I knew when I was 16 years old that I wanted to marry Justin. The following years of graduating high school and going off to college felt like I was just doing my time until I could have the one thing I wanted most. That’s honestly how I felt for so long… like there was this great beautiful thing waiting for me just over the horizon and I just had to wait for it. I had no idea that that wait would be 5 years long. There were so many moments of fear, doubt, and just plain selfishness… because I couldn’t see what the future held, and I just had to trust God when he told me to be patient. We don’t have a typical story. The average couple dates for about 2 years before getting engaged… Justin and I were friends for 5 years before we even started dating! And when I fell for him, I fell HARD. I remember being at the 6 month mark and just wanting so badly to be together *constantly* and we pretty much were! But what I wanted more than anything was to marry him, to be his wife, to love and serve him as a spouse, to wake up to him every morning and fall asleep by his side every night. I wanted to travel together and live together and to do all the things that married couples get to do. And when you want something you can’t have, you obsess about it! It seems like the best thing in the WORLD when it’s just out of your reach.

So, you can imagine how the first couple years of our relationship were so incredibly happy but at the same time just CRAWLED by for me. I think at one point as a freshman, I started a countdown to my college graduation day because I knew that graduating would likely be close to our wedding day. Thankfully, around the 4 year mark, the Lord started to change my heart… I grew deeper in my relationship with Him than I’d ever been before, and I began to fully, truly, completely trust HIM. Not my own plans, not Justin’s plans, just the Lord’s love for me. And my prayer for almost all of 2014 was “God, please reveal to me if Justin is the one for me.” For the first time ever… I wholeheartedly laid our relationship at His feet for the Lord to do what He may. It was NOT easy… through tears I prayed out loud surrounded by my mentors that I would rather be without Justin than without Jesus. I could no longer just fantasize about being married. I had to look deep within myself, pour my heart out before God, and ask Him to change me into what He wants to use to glorify Him.

At the Delight leader’s retreat I went to in November, I was actually so broken. I loved Justin deeply and yet I wasn’t sure if we were headed down the same path. I’d been praying and praying for the Lord to reveal to us what to do next… where we should go from here. Everything about our relationship was wonderful except for the fact that we seemed to be stuck and unable to move forward. The last night of the retreat, I still hadn’t really opened up with the rest of the group about what I needed prayer about. We finished worship and we were all just sitting in silence when Erin said, “I feel like God just keeps telling me there’s unfinished business.” I KNEW I needed prayer. I knew I should have spoken up all week. And still I stayed quiet. But so did the rest of the room. Obviously, God was speaking to Erin and He was speaking directly to ME. So I poured my heart out about what Justin and I had been praying about all year and how we just needed the Lord’s guidance. The girls started praying for me, and then Erin said, “I just see this huge, marvelous castle… this great, beautiful fortress for Megan’s life. And I just see Megan trying to batter down the doors to get in and see what’s on the other side and Lord we just pray that you reveal to her and make it blindingly clear whether Justin is on the other side of those doors.” And at that moment in my head I saw myself walk through the castle’s doors… and I saw Justin waiting for me on the other side, smiling at me with that smile I’ve fallen so in love with. I didn’t tell anyone what I saw except for Meredith on the plane ride home. I had no idea what it meant. Was it just my own fantasies putting that image in my head? Maybe it was. I wanted nothing more in my entire life than to marry Justin. But maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. Doubts started to fill my mind again and when I got back home and settled back into my crazy business and school routine, I started to freak out.

I had no idea, but all this time, Justin had had the ring in his safe for months and months. He knew he wanted to propose at Neuschwanstein Castle because that was the place I had been talking about most since we had started planning the trip in May. But he wanted SO badly for it to be a surprise that he did his absolute BEST to convince me that it probably wasn’t going to happen. Whenever any talk of the future would come up, he would say things like, “We’ll see,” and “Well you can’t always have things fit a perfect plan…” etc.! He did such a horribly good job at being mysterious that a couple weeks before the trip I was crying alone in my room because I was SURE that we were never going to get married. I was so dramatic about the trip and our 5 year anniversary approaching that by the time I started packing for Europe I literally could not even think about it. I had a plan set for living out 2015/2016 without being engaged because making plans is what I do to cope. I like to be in control and know what’s going to happen next, so I settled for what I thought was our reality… not being engaged for another couple of years. I couldn’t even let myself imagine a proposal happening… so I didn’t!

We were set to go to Neuschwanstein on December 19th, Justin’s birthday and our first full day in Germany. We weren’t renting a car there so we had booked a private bus tour to get from Munich to the castle. Annnnd then we got stranded in Iceland and all of those plans just completely melted into nonexistence. We got to Munich a whopping 12 hours after our bus tour to the castle would have left. I really wasn’t even sure we would get to go to the castle at all! (Imagine what was going through Justin’s mind!) Thankfully, when we got to Munich, my dad decided to rent a car so we could drive ourselves to the castle the next day.

Little did I know, the day of the proposal had arrived! That morning we were supposed to depart at 9am for the castle. Alexa came into my room at 9:30 and I woke up confused as to why we hadn’t left! My dad had gone to pick up the rental car TWO HOURS earlier and Alexa was freaking out because she didn’t know where he was. We all just decided to stay calm and get ready for the day until he got back. Well… another TWO hours passed and there was still no sign of my dad. It was now almost noon and once again, castle plans were just melting away. There was no plan C after this. We had to move on to the next town that night. So I’m having a mini-meltdown on one street corner, Alexa’s having a panic attack on the next one, and Justin is pacing back and forth in front of the apartment (probably reconsidering proposing on this trip in general haha) when my dad finally walks up and explains that he got lost for three hours because he could not for the life of him figure out how to work the GPS. *So* typical of our family vacations for this kind of stuff to happen. At 12 we finally got into the car and were on our way to Neuschwanstein!

A couple hours later, we were pulling up to the base of this mountain and getting ready to climb up to the castle. We all went to use the restroom and surprise, the tickets were going to be done selling in FIVE minutes. And the ticket booth was about a couple football field’s distance up the mountain. I literally RAN to the ticket counter! We did not come all this way and go through all that crap to get here only to have the ticket booth close right after we arrived! We JUST made one of the last tours by the time the tickets stopped selling! Phew!!

And then it was time to climb the mountain… and we completely underestimated how steep the hill was and how out of shape we were. Okay, maybe just me.

Here’s the carriage we probably should have taken up to the castle. LOL. That hike was no joke!!

And finally, after 25 minutes of sweat and tears, there it was!!!

Talk about a sight for sore eyes! I couldn’t believe after months and months of having this castle as my phone background I was finally seeing it in person! And it was GORGEOUS! No wonder Walt Disney based his park castles off of this one… it was stunning! We found a good picture spot at the base of the castle to take some photos and video…

And then……….!

In front of hundreds of other tourists, Justin got down on one knee and said, “Will you marry me?”

Apparently he asked me twice because I didn’t hear him the first time! I just could NOT believe…. it was real life….. I always thought I would start bawling when Justin proposed and in the moment when it actually happened, I was just too much in SHOCK to feel any emotion! I never thought that would be me but it was…! And then when I turned around to show everyone my ring it kind of just hit me!

We were ENGAGED! And he had asked me at the most beautiful castle in the world! It just didn’t feel real!! I kept staring down at the shiny new ring on my finger! But we still had a tour to get to, so we spent some time just enjoying the moment and taking a few portraits in the castle’s courtyard!

So all this time… all those months I spent doubting and worrying… Justin had a plan all along. And he made sure to take video and have my sisters on hand to have it all captured! That’s seriously one of the sweetest parts about this whole thing because he knows how important pictures are to me. The video was just a bonus! Justin, I love you… so deeply… and I can’t believe this is our real life. Our first step towards becoming a husband and wife. I’m so thankful the Lord brought us together to learn from each other and to grow physically and spiritually by each other’s sides. Thank you for caring about the little things that are so important to me. I love you and I can’t wait to start a life with you, as challenging as marriage may be at times… I know it will all be okay because of the love we have for each other and for the Lord. I’m so excited for the future, whatever it may hold… and I can’t wait to become your wife!!!

And here’s the video! I could NOT resist using Taylor Swift as the soundtrack to this… anyone who knows me well knows how much I adore her and this song was just too fitting to not use! So here it is!!  Be sure to view full screen! ;) AH!!! Can you guys believe it?!?! My heart is so full! So in love with this guy! And we’re getting MARRIED!!!!!