LAURA JEFFS
“At 18, I didn’t think that marriage was in my cards, but at 21 I met my husband, Jason. Jason Ebbers. He says that he knew right away there was something about me, but I wasn’t sure if I just wanted to be friends or what. But he always accepted me for who I am. I had dealt with a lot of bullying and teasing growing up in the military world. I was always quite petite, which is great in the ballet world, but I did deal with a lot of teasing growing up. But Jason just loved everything about me, and I think that’s what’s important about marriage and marrying your best friend. And that’s what I’m really grateful for, that I got to know Jason as a friend first, before realizing how much I was in love with him.
“He asked me on an official date, to a wedding. I think I’d known him for about a year and a half. And as cheesy as it sounds, we went to this wedding, and it was at the moment that he held my hand that I knew I was in love with him.
“Jay and I just passed our fiveyear mark of being together. He proposed in January 2015. We had just got back from Dominican — we went over New Year’s — and a lot of people were asking
if we’d got engaged. Everyone thought, ‘He’s taking her to Dominican to get engaged.’ But no, he didn’t propose to me there.
“He was out with some friends one night. It was Jan. 24. He had come home and I was already asleep. He woke me up, and the first words out of my mouth were, ‘Can you order me a pizza?’ So I must have been dreaming about food or something. He was very weird about it, like, ‘You want it now?’
“So he ordered a pizza, and of course we had to wait, and little did I know that he had a ring in his pocket and he’s trying to find the right moment. So the pizza comes and he goes and answers the door and everything, and then he comes back into the bedroom and he doesn’t have the pizza with him. So I look at him and say, ‘Where’s the pizza?’ and he says, ‘It’s in the kitchen.’ And I say, ‘Well, why didn’t you bring it in with you?’ and he says, ‘If you want a piece of pizza, I think you should get up and get it yourself.’
“So I’m walking to the kitchen and being a typical girl and thinking, ‘I can’t believe what he said,’ and then I come back into the bedroom and there he is, sort of kneeling on one knee, and I’m looking at him … I had a plate of pizza in my hand and I dropped the plate, and I’m looking at the pizza, and I’m looking at him, and then he starts saying these things — that he had never met someone like me and that he’d never felt so safe with someone — and I was listening but I wasn’t quite listening, and at this point I’m uncontrollably crying. Now I’ve clued in, but I’m still very concerned that my food is on the floor and he’s trying so hard to get all his words out. And then I look at him and say, ‘Jason, is this really what’s happening?’ and he said, ‘Can you just let me get the question out?’ And then he said, ‘Will you marry me?’
“And I was crying, crying, crying, and then finally he looked at me and said, ‘Are those happy tears or are you about to say no?’ and I said, ‘No, yes, yes, yes, no, yes, no, I’m saying yes.’ ”