Like most who have a gut feeling (aka a loose timeframe that has been previously discussed) that a proposal is on the horizon, Liz Nichols, New York City-based senior manager of design & product development at West Elm, toyed with the idea of wanting to get her nails done in time for a mid-September engagement. Even though she normally doesn’t get manicures, it was something to at least think about it.

But when her now fiancé surprised her while she was on an Italian vacay with her sister in Puglia over Labor Day Weekend to ask the big question, she said yes with bare nails—and she wouldn’t have it any other way. “I do wish my nails had all been the same length, but that's a never-ending journey,” Nichols tells Vogue . “[But] I don't wish that I had a color on my nails. In the end, it

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