Our Engagement in Bologna, Italy

the full story ❤️

*POST UPDATED OCTOBER 2024.

Oh my gosh, helllloooo friends! I’m so glad you’re here! Hopefully you’re well, with some nice plans for the weekend ahead. Boyfriend – or should he be referred to as Fiancé from here on out? – and I are settling back in at home, reveling in the joys of being newly engaged. We paused the celebrations for a bit due to a positive Covid-19 test on my side of things, but, as of the other day, I’m officially negative! Huzzah – let the celebrations continue! Thus far, there has been hugging and champagne aplenty with my family, which was so! nice! We plan to repeat the hugging/champagne party with Boyfriend’s family asap, aaand we’ve loads of little celebrations with friends lined up, too! I can barely wait! But first, I thought it would be fun to stop by and share this: Our Engagement in Bologna, Italy. Aka: the story!

For years, I’ve treated this space as a journal. Somewhere I can come to share details about my life, fun bucket lists, photo journals, or anything I see fit. Basically, as soon as we got engaged, I found myself writing this post in my head. I knew I’d want to write down the details, share the photos, commit everything to hard-copy memory. I LOVE looking back and I’m entirely positive I’ll be looking over this post for years to come.

Okay, let’s get to it! Eeep!

our engagement in Bologna, Italy

The big day started off well. We left San Donato in Poggio with all of Boyfriend’s family, and arrived in Florence mid-morning. We said goodbye to everyone at the train station, and spent the next few hours pottering around our favourite Florentine haunts. Breakfast at Gilli, the Loggia for sculpture-gawping, a retro photo-booth, lunch at 4Leoni, and a spritz at Bulli & Balene.

Just as we were getting ready to leave the city, things took a turn for the worse. Our train to Bologna was delayed by 1-hour, without explanation. There were exactly zero seats at the station and the weather was a disgustingly hot and sticky 38°C. Neither of these sound like big issues now – but in the moment there was a lot of sweat-induced rage.

By the time we got to Bologna, neither of us were in great form – but Boyfriend was doing his best to lift the mood.

Things started looking up after we checked in to our beautiful hotel. Albergo delle Drapperie is an old favourite that we’d stayed in many years before and loved, except this time we splurged on a Junior Suite. Dark wooden beams, moody natural lighting, spacious; it was wondrously romantic.

After a cold shower and a good blast of air-con, I was about 90% back to my usual self, and Boyfriend was 100% – if not slightly cheerier than usual. As we started getting ready to go out, he said that we should really try to have a great night – act as if it was our last night, get dressed up, have fun.

Make-up on, hair wrangled into a somewhat presentable bun, semi-clean clothes unfurled from the bottom of my luggage, earrings in place. A little perfume and some lipstick later, I was ready!

Just as we were about to leave the room, Boyfriend said he had a note for me that he’d brought from home.

Notes were a big feature of our relationship back in the very early days; Boyfriend would come to visit me in work and he’d slip me a handwritten note with a few cute lines or a poem etc. – just something to make me smile. Now, in Bologna, he handed me a folded piece of paper from our notepad back home, and it read something along the lines of:

Dear Vicki,

How would you like to be Vicki Kennedy?

Love, Rob

Singed off with and adorable little smiley face that he always puts after his name, just like that. Simple, concise, and straight to the point.

Naturally, I didn’t believe a word of it and started to berate him for such a not-funny and insensitive joke. Then, everything started to happen both really fast and really slow.

He pulled a small, ribbon-wrapped box from his coat pocket, handed it to me, and my heart went wild. As I opened the box, he got down on one knee and asked the question. After ascertaining that he was being genuine and that this was really happening, I said a very emotional yes.

I always thought I’d have an idea of if or when this moment was coming, but I was so surprised right then that a feather could’ve knocked me down.

After a lot of happy tears and hugging, we headed out for a celebratory toast at Osteria del Sole.

I had a glass of Prosecco, he had a Menabrea, and we cheers-ed to the future with two big grins. I then proceeded to pepper him with ALL THE QUESTIONS. When did you start planning? Who knew? Have you been carrying the ring around all week? Why now?? I wanted to know every little detail, from the moment he first decided to pop the question, right up until 30-minutes previously when he actually did. One of the sweetest details he admitted to was doing all his ring research at the library, lest I start getting ads for rings at home & become suspicious.

Isn’t he adorable?

Time slipped away from us over that celebratory toast and suddenly were rushing out the door to our next stop!

The moment we emerged from the winding streets of the Quadrilatero, we were greeted with the most beautiful sunset-tinted sky. Brightest pinks, deepest purples, and every pretty colour in between.

It felt incredibly magical and romantic; we took it as an exceptionally good omen on the night of our engagement 🙂

The rest of the night is a blur of happiness. We enjoyed dinner at Giampi e Ciccio, cocktails on Via Belvedere, and some of Nosferatu at Piazza Maggiore on the way home.

I carried the ring – which sadly didn’t fit on my excessively chubby finger – in my handbag and took it out to gaze at every time it felt like I was dreaming. Only every ten minutes or so!

We had decided earlier that we’d wait until the morning to tell our loved ones the good news. Our secret for one night only

Eventually we made our way back to the hotel, emotionally exhausted but thrilled, and fell into bed for the first time as two very happy fiancés.

I kept the ring on my bedside table and watched it sparkle in the glow from our lamps until I could fight sleep no more.

And there we have it: Our Engagement in Bologna, Italy! What did you think? Romantic? Sappy? Goofy? I absolutely love our story – especially that he did it in Bologna, our favourite city. It still sometimes feels like a major pinch-me moment!

Thank you for reading along and sharing in our happiness!

Love,

Vicki & Rob xo

PS, getting the ring resized was one of the first things we did after getting home! I am even more obsessed with how perfect it is now that it’s on my finger!

*Date of engagement: 2nd July, 2022*

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