Well. After nearly 7 years it finally happened…
Boyfriend proposed! I guess now I should get used to calling him fiance, huh?
As you can plainly see, I waited a while before posting anything here. He proposed around midnight on Christmas Eve (so 12:10am on December 24), and I waited until everyone in our families had been told in person (or on the phone) before posting anything on social media. Now that it’s had a few days to sink in, I’ve decided to post it on here.
And now – for the proposal story.
We’ve been dating since March 2007 (and were friends for about a year before that), so this has been a long time coming… with a bit of badgering him about getting engaged on my part. But he managed to completely, totally, 100% surprise the heck out of me with his proposal. I had literally no clue that it was coming, which made it even more amazing.
For most of our relationship, Chuck and I have been long distance. I was still away at school when we started dating, and he was living in Boston. Then when I graduated I was working in Boston and staying with him most nights of the week, but also heading home to my family an hour and a half away. Then he moved to New Hampshire and I was back down in Rhode Island. When the stars finally aligned and we were able to move in together, it was a big moment in our relationship. I felt that I wanted to be engaged to someone before I signed a lease, whereas he felt that he wanted to live with someone for at least a year before getting engaged. Unfortunately, his logic made sense – given our mostly long-distance past – and I agreed to move in, sans engagement ring.
We moved in together on June 29, 2012 – so we’ve been living together for just over 1.5 years. And let me tell you – when that 1 year mark hit my “hinting” about getting engaged turned into full-blown, “So when is this happening, bucko?” Totally not cute and not romantic, but I was getting antsy. He also told me recently that we would not be getting engaged “anytime soon” because he just started his new job and he’s trying to save up, etc. (Turns out, he had been planning to propose to me at the Fourth of July fireworks this past summer – but I had mentioned something about not wanting a proposal in a super public place and he decided to put it off a while. I screwed myself on that one.)
This year for Christmas we decided not to exchange gifts – only stocking stuffers – because we bought some furniture, and – of course – the kittens! Leading up to Christmas he was telling me that he was going to crush Christmas, his stocking gifts were the best, etc. And, of course, I got self-conscious about what he got me, thinking my stocking gifts would totally fall flat and be lame. So I bought him some awesome stocking stuffers!
I kept asking to do stockings early because I have zero patience and get so excited for gifts and he finally told me that we could do them on Christmas Eve. And, if I wanted, we could even do them at 12:01am (“just to make sure it’s really Christmas Eve and not still the 23rd”) – of course I said okay! At the time I didn’t think it was weird that he would let me open gifts early, but looking back that was definitely a give away that something weird was going on. He loves surprises and is all about following gift rules (ie: can’t open a birthday gift until it’s your actual birthday, no Christmas gifts until it’s actually Christmas, etc), so getting the opportunity to open our stocking stuffers in the middle of the night (even though it was technically Christmas Eve) was a strange thing.
So at 12:01am on Christmas Eve we started exchanging stocking gifts. He got me lots of fun stuff, I got him lots of fun stuff – it was all good. Then, the last gift in my stocking was an ornament – a porcelain heart with a mirrored background and some engraving on it.
When Sasha died, I had been trying to find an ornament to represent her on our tree but I had no luck. At first – before I had the ornament fully out of the box – I thought it was a Sasha ornament and I was touched at how thoughtful it was. But as I read the engraving and it said “Our First Christmas” and… I got confused, thinking “wait…we’ve been dating forever, and have had 1 Christmas in this apartment already, this isn’t our first Christmas!” but I kept reading because there was two more lines.
For some reason the next line I kind of just skimmed – it started with an “E” and I just presumed it said “Emy & Livy” (the kittens) and again was touched by how thoughtful he was. And then… it registered… it didn’t say “Emy & Livy” it said “Engaged.”
And I just sat there with my brain spinning – “Engaged. Engaged? ENGAGED?!?!” Then I started laughing and crying and weirdly flapping my hand near my face. And he got down on 1 knee and I wouldn’t let him talk or open the box for about 4 minutes because I was so… not composed. I wanted to be able to look at him when he asked, but I couldn’t look at him because I was basically hyperventilating. I think the first words I actually said were “Oh my God, I’m going to throw up.” How romantic. Every time he tried to ask me something, or speak I would say “no, no, I’m not ready yet!” Finally, I calmed down and I said “Okay, okay – go ahead.” And he asked and I said yes and then I jumped on him and gave him a zillion kisses.
(The final line of the engraving was the date – December 24, 2013 – which is why he was adamant that we waited until at least midnight to open gifts.)
And now we’re planning a wedding!
In honor of our wedding planning, I’m going to try to do a weekly wedding post – probably a Weddings Wednesday because that seems to be the industry standard – so stick around for the ride!