You guys, we’re swooning over Alli and Mallory’s engagement story and photos! We love how the students got in on the act and how Alli’s parents flew in from Florida!
The proposal:
Alli and Mallory met in the summer of 2013, at Mallory’s apartment, a week after she brought Frankie home. They were friends first. For months, Mallory showed Alli around Boston and they stayed up late sipping whiskey and talking on her porch. Alli had just moved up from Florida to start a new job as a chemistry teacher.
When Alli went home for Christmas break, she texted Mallory that she missed her. Mallory tried to play hard to get when she got back, but never one to mince words, she quickly gave up and told Alli she saw a future between them. A few days later, Alli took Mallory out to dinner and told her she’d moved slowly because she knew it was the real thing.
A year after Alli moved to Boston, she got a dog, Emma. A year after that, Mallory and Frankie moved in with Alli and Emma into Alli’s bachelorette pad in Braintree. Mallory waited and waited for Alli to propose. She hoped maybe it would happen in Florida, on a trip with both of their parents. Then she thought maybe New Years, or around Valentine’s Day.
One Friday night in March, Mallory traveled home from work to watch a short school play at the high school campus they lived on, which was supposed to take place before heading out for a friend’s party back in the city. Knowing she was going out later, she pinned back her hair, washed all her makeup off, and threw on a large flannel, planning to shower and put a dress on later. “You look great,” said Alli, “Let’s go, we’ll be late.” Alli, mysteriously, was already dressed up.
Alli told Mallory that as a senior project, one of her students interviewed her about her relationship in hopes of writing a story “loosely based on how Alli and Mallory met.” Mallory laughed to see an accurate portrayal, with Thayer students posing as her, Alli, and even her best friend Jenna.
“I can’t believe this, I wish Jenna could see it!” she thought. A student’s dog even played Frank. At the end of the play, one of the students narrated: “Like most ‘Rom-Coms’ we usually don’t get to see how these stories end, but oh wait, what’s happening over there?!”
Mallory stared at the stage as everyone paused for several seconds. The stage lights swung to Alli, who had gotten down on one knee without Mallory even noticing. Immediately, the directing box at the top of the theatre opened and Mallory and Alli’s friends and parents poured out (including Jenna)! They had been hiding in there for over an hour. Alli’s parents flew in for the occasion all the way from Florida!
Three days later, Mallory and Alli closed on their first house and moved in a few weeks after that. Between planning the wedding, training for National Guard, night school classes, and home fix-it projects, they are very excited to relax and celebrate with all of our family and friends on Sept. 23, 2017.
From their photographer, Sara Smile:
Mallory and Allison actually found me through an engagement session that was published on Equally Wed (Nick and Eric’s romantic Rhode Island engagement session) so I thought it fitting that I now submit theirs. They’ve been through a lot together including coming out to their families, military service, and buying their first home. We took these photos at the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain, Mass., where Mallory lived when they started dating.
Photos: Sara Smile Photography
