A loving boyfriend came up with a one-of-a-kind proposal for his girlfriend, filling a museum with paintings from each year of their relationship, before getting down on one knee next to a portrait of him proposing. Brendon Dohno, 26, from Nashville, Tennessee, started dating his girlfriend Kaitlyn Lawrence, 25, in 2015, when the pair were still in high school. Brendon said the couple had moved from childhood into adulthood together, and he couldn't imagine his life without Kaitlyn going forward. With so many memories from such a young age, Brendon called on another high school friend, Natalie Hensely of Natsy Art, to help him with his unique proposal idea. Brendon tasked Natalie with painting a portrait for each year he and Kaitlyn had been together. He planned to hang the paintings in the Cedarhurst Center for the Arts in Mount Vernon, Illinois, where the couple attended open mic nights as children. The 26-year-old also asked his sister for help, who drew up a list of important life events that he and Kaitlyn had experienced—moving into their first house, graduating from college together—as well as special, more intimate moments, like writing a song for Kaitlyn to ask her to homecoming. Ahead of the big surprise, Natalie created eight portraits of past events, including one of Brendon getting down on one knee and proposing in the arts center. In it, Kaitlyn is wearing the dress that the 26-year-old thought she would wear on the day. To get Kaitlyn to the museum, Brendon had the venue's events planner call her to say the family would be attending a banquet on that day, and that she had been invited. Then, on the day itself, Kaitlyn arrived to find family at the event, sipping champagne and holding programs that explained the backstory of each painting. There, the couple dances to "Honeybee" by Steam Powered Giraffe, a song they had bonded over when they were younger, before Brendon gets down on one knee in front of his proposal painting.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00She caught this bouquet just a few days before her secret proposal and
00:05Her walking green flag vlogged all eight months of the elaborate planning process
00:11I have had the most fun
00:13I think I've ever had in my life planning this proposal it all started almost a decade ago when Brendan and Kate started dating in
00:20High school, there's something really fun about getting to grow up with somebody
00:25You know and loving somebody's when you were kids and when you're an adult as well
00:28They grew up making memories at their local art center and museum
00:32So he made their love story the newest exhibit their friend Natalie painted their milestones
00:39into
00:41Masterpieces. So yeah, she's doing nine big paintings and we're gonna have the museum all to ourselves
00:45I think we will probably go with doing the the proposal as the last one, which I think is a fun way to finish it
00:52He made sure to get her parents blessing, too
00:55I was just too excited and I set an alarm for like 6 a.m
00:59And I woke up on my own before that because I couldn't wait
01:03Then the family tricked her into thinking she was just going to a banquet
01:08Her dad would call me and say I'm gonna complain about this banquet
01:11I'm gonna pretend I don't want to go so I can really throw her off
01:13But they had to know what dress she was going to wear so Natalie could paint it in the last picture. So
01:26Finally all that was left to do was to check out the paintings
01:33We are here to see the paintings for your proposal. So hopefully they're very cute
01:37Now it's gonna come let us in very soon
01:39I have loved every second of having you as my girlfriend and I cannot wait for every second of having you as my fiance
01:45For me, it was just about thinking of wanting to think of every detail
01:49I wanted every little tiny piece to be meaningful, you know, and it absolutely
01:54Would be
01:56Very excited very excited at the ring nothing else in my pockets
02:02Everything's going good
02:03I feel like I was in like shock cuz I came in and the programs had my name on them like like it was the bit
02:09It was the banquet, but it was all for me
02:12When I saw him
02:15I don't know how I felt. It was just it was so sweet. It was such a sweet moment
02:21After dancing to their song he even proposed with her mom's original engagement ring
02:27I always knew like his proposal would be
02:31Beautiful like it would be perfect. I just I knew it was
02:41And there were so many
02:43times and as I'm walking through and seeing all those paintings and all those small little things that I remember now and and so many
02:49other memories that didn't get to be
02:51Painted, you know that at the time we're just like normal days and then you look back and there are these big important things
02:56And so to get to the end and realize that you know
02:59You'd kind of been writing a story the whole time without realizing it is is really really lovely and Natalie will even be creating a live
03:07Painting at their wedding so they can hang it up right alongside
03:11the others
03:13Like right here ish
03:16We're trying to hang them up in our dining room and
03:19Yeah, and I work in our I work from home and I work in the dining room
03:22So I'll get to look at them every day