How did your proposal go.

[paul.karen]

Kind of a follow up of Texansummer's post of how did you meet.


It was Christmas eve 1999.  We were at our house with some friends ready to bring in the new millennium.  Earlier in the day i had prepared her (Karen's) engagement ring.  I had an ice tray some thread and a toothpick.  I tied her ring to the thread then to the toothpick so it was suspended in the middle of a cube in an ice tray,  filled with water and let it freeze.  Later that night as the party was in full swing i got up to get a round of drinks.  I pulled the special cube out from hiding and made Karen a drink.  Man she babysat this drink and i was anxious.  She finally finished her drink and to my dismay never noticed her specail ice cube.  So i said Karen what is that in your drink.  She looked into her about empty drink and well she threw the whole drink across the room.  She thought it was a bug lol.  When she finally went to investigate she got very happy ect ect.  She wanted to break the icecube with a hammer i says no don't do that.  I said just hold it and it will melt fast enough.

That was 11 years ago.  She is the best thing to happen to me.  And i wouldn't change the last 15 years for anything.....(we dated for 4 years)

[monrein]

Very matter-of-factly and unromantically.  We'd been living together and traveling around together for 5 years when one day in the car I said "do you think we should get married and get the immigration issue out of the way (I was on a special kind of student visa)" and he said "sure, you get a wedding ring and I'll get the license."  Done.

A couple of years earlier he'd wanted to marry me at a Buddhist Temple in Burma but I said "no, I'm way too young and you're way too crazy".

At the very beginning when we were just hanging out as friends and he'd done something particularly nutty (can't remember what) I said "Lee I can't wait to meet the girl you're going to marry, she'll have to be some kind of idiot" to which he replied without missing a beat "Well Gail, if that were my only pre-requisite, you'd be first on my list".

[willowtreewren]

Carl and I were visiting a Frank Lloyd Wright home near Washington, D.C. I was still in High School. There was an admission break for students and the person selling the tickets asked where I went to college. When I said that I was in HS, the man asked where I intended to go to college. I just said that I didn't think I would be going to college. Carl looked at me and said "What??" But then he realized that I actually intended to get married.....to him! 

So that's how he found out that he had been hooked. 

[Poppylicious]

Paul, I love your ice-cube story! 

2004 was a leap year so on Sunday 29th February I insisted that I wanted to go to a local seaside town for a walk along the promenade.  It's the same seaside town to which we went the second time we met up.  I'd prepared this little tiny box containing sequins and a poem, with each line written separately on tiny little cards.  The very last card asked, 'Will you marry me?'  I saw him get to the bit and he was really quiet and I was thinking, 'uhoh'.  I panicked a bit and blurted out, 'So?'!  Thankfully he gave me a 'Yes!'

Phew!

Afterwards we celebrated with capuccinos overlooking the sea.

When I was clearing out the garage a few weeks ago I found the box with the poem inside.  I'd even stuck a sequin on the lid of the box (it's a teeny box; so cute!)  It's a little silly when I look at it now, but I knew I couldn't actually say the words to him so I needed someway of writing it down nicely.

 

[Meinuk]

I love reading everyone's responses.  And it is great that all so far have ended in "happily ever after".  Mine ended in "happily ever after" too, but in all three cases, the answer was NO.  Three strikes and I am out - but happy.

#1. We met when we were 11.  I swooned. I had a rocky (to say the least) childhood. He was there for me when my mother died from PKD, and two years later, he was there when my Grandfather (my guardian after my mother) died.  His family were solid, loving and accepting of my foibles.  We loved each other BUT we were children and I had anger issues.

When we were in our early 20's and all of our friends started "getting serious" he got up the guts to say "I want you to have my children, no strings attached".  We both knew that there were strings.  At first, I said yes.  A few months later, we lay awake and realized that the answer was really no. After I said "If you want to know what you are marrying, look at her mother", he was honest and said that he could not live through losing his wife. We cried, and that was that.  Watching him move on hurt.  A lot.

#2.  He was a painter (houses).  Smart, well read, a bit of a Renaissance Man that was nicknamed "Tree" (I like `em tall and skinny). After six months of dating, he had a key to my apartment.  I'd read him Joseph Conrad at bedtime when he was having a bad day.  (he suffered from panic attacks) On a trip back from Europe, he picked me up at the airport.  We drove back to the apartment in silence.  In the parking lot of my apartment building, he opened my door, swept me out of the truck (a red Jeep pickup) pretty much threw me against the truck, kissed me and then said we should register at Park's Hardware. Then came the ring. Then I said no.  The next few months were pretty ugly. He ended up falling for one of my good friends.  I didn't take it very well.

#3.  I met him the night of a snowstorm.  He was the friend of a friend interviewing for Medical School.  We met him after his interview and were going to go out to dinner.  The taxi driver was either drunk or mentally incapacitated.  I looked at this new guy and said, "I just met you and now I am going to spend the rest of my life with you, because we're gonna die". (I say things like that)

The three of us got out of the taxi, walked nine blocks to the apartment he was staying at.  I walked in and demanded that the owner give me something to wear, and I stripped out of my soaked clothing. After he made sure that our mutual friend was not interested, he stated that "This is the woman I am going to marry".  A few years later, my nephew was calling him "Uncle".  One day in March, I told him that I had met someone else.  He said that he was ok with it.  I started planning my life without him.  Weeks later, without discussing it with me, he announced to everyone at a party the date of our wedding and that we were off to have a ring designed.  My reaction?  Shock and horror.  A couple of the people in the room knew that I had been seeing someone else.  Oblivious, my sister started planning the wedding, and I ran off to Europe.  He is very happily married now with a family, and I have to wonder "How did he propose to her?"


There are days when I wonder what my life would have been like if the answer had been yes.  I think that is why I like being a writer.  My first book is really based on #1, and in that, the story ends differently.  All three taught me something about myself and also taught me how much pressure that there is on men in todays society. It isn't easy to put yourself out there and ask. So many times, I have heard that men will test the water and say it as a joke first, just to gauge her reaction. #1 and I had discussed it so much, that finally asking was just a formality.  But we were kids.  #2, well, he had issues (and so did I).  And #3, he was just ambitious. 

I feel very lucky to have loved all three, and they really changed my life.  There have been others since then, but no one has ever asked THAT question since #3's announcement- maybe I have gotten very good at broadcasting that marriage not an option - or maybe they were it.

[billybags]

I was pushed into going to a Christmas dance by my parents, they had a spare ticket. My husband was playing in the group, he played guitar, he asked me to dance, probably because I was the youngest there. He asked me for a date for the next night, I agreed even though I was engaged at the time. (Wasn't I shallow.) We meet the following night, I went home and said to my Mum "I am going to marry him" you can imagine what she said. We married 10 months later and have just had our 45th wedding anniversary. It was love at first sight. I would not change him for the world.

[looneytunes]

Hubby was the regional head honcho of a very large organization and as such was hosting a very large convention in his region.  I was acting as his executive assistant for the event and we had been dating just over 2 years.  On the 2nd night of the convention, he had indulged in large quantities of adult beverages and suddenly, in the middle of a street party packed with about 2500 of his closest friends, dropped to one knee and proposed to me.  It was really unexpected on my part. 

The next morning, he had to ask me what my answer was!  I had told him to ask me again when he was sober, which he did and here we are. 

[Poppylicious]

It was really unexpected on my part. 

Was it unexpected on his part or had he planned it (and consumed vast quantities of adult bevarages in case you said no)?!

[Genlando]

My father-in-law to-be is a big, imposing man.  He evidently liked me, but he always put on the tough-guy routine to keep me in check.  So I decided that I ABSOLUTELY get his permission to marry his daughter before I even asked her.

I came to their house about an hour before my fiancée-to-be (Cheryl) was supposed to come home.  I told her father that I wanted to ask him something, and took out the ring to show it to him and his wife.  At that instant, Cheryl came into the room (she'd gotten off from work early).   Cheryl's mother said: "Well, are you going to take the ring?" Cheryl put immediately put it on, and hugged me.  I had practiced a proposal speech, and didn't even get a chance to use it!  We were married 6 months later.

We're going to celebrate our 29th anniversary on the 15th of May, even though I technically proposed to Cheryl's father--and not her!