The surprise marriage proposal made by a Lubbock Christian University baseball player took the couple back to one of the places where their relationship started.
Dillon Drury popped the question to new fiancé Ashton Bell on December 11. Drury is a utility player for LCU, and Ashton played softball before she graduated in May.
“I actually got the ring about a month ago, just kind of spent all this time trying to figure out the perfect plan,” Drury explained.
Drury convinced Bell to go with him to church, so they’d be dressed up, and he told her he had a lesson with a young baseball player. The pair played catch while waiting for Drury’s imaginary student to arrive.
He switched out the baseball with another that had the two magic words on it, “Marry Me?”
Then, he intentionally overthrew it, and as Bell retrieved the ball, Drury dropped to one knee.
“I was totally surprised,” she exclaimed. “I wasn’t even going to read it but he was like read the ball! And I was like ‘oh my gosh.'”
Drury credits Bell’s sister for coming up with the “overthrown baseball” plan.
Both families were waiting patiently in the press box at Hays Field, watching the memorable moment.
Drury’s mother, Regina, who is a photographer, snapped away from the booth, with his sister Brooke recording the proposal on video.
“Kind of neat to be able to capture it,” Regina Drury said.
“I’ve taken countless pictures of him on the baseball field since he was young, and this one meant the most to me,” she told EverythingLubbock.com.
The couple’s first date was frisbee golf at Mackenzie Park, they recalled.
“I was trying to impress him the whole time and prove to him that I’m an athlete,” Bell mentioned. “And it did not go well, but he was so sweet about the whole thing and he was just trying to show me how to do it.”
The newly-engaged couple has already planned a date for their nuptials. July 1, 2017 is when they plan to tie the knot. Bell said she was eagerly counting down the days.
“199 days, I’m already counting,” she said on Wednesday.
