Weddingbee Blog

Miss Spider says:

We had long decided to take that day off. The last weekday of the year. Of course, the night before I went out with the girls and didn’t crawl home until the wee hours of the morning. Mr. Spider had spent the better part of the night hanging out with my parents. Despite waking up hungover, Mr. Spider insisted we go out and complete a list of activities he had pre-planned. I pulled on some random clothes but I noticed Mr. Spider getting all dressed up. “I just wanna look spiffy today,” he said. When we left the house, he ran back in to “get something” and I almost caught him because, of course, after waiting 20 seconds I got impatient and went back into the house after him. You’d think I knew something was up but I didn’t.

Months earlier Mr. Spider told me that he needed more time. Another year he said. Unbeknownst to me, he and my mom had already started the search for the perfect ring. Looking back, I kind of suspected something was up several times that day but each time I told myself to drop it because I didn’t want to be disappointed.

Because the next day was New Years Eve and I still didn’t have an outfit, I dragged Mr. Spider around SoHo after our wonderful brunch at Balthazar. Mr. Spider set off the alarm at Scoop and since he didn’t have any bags on him the security guard said he must have a tag attached to his clothes. Immediately I frisked him and he squirmed away and said he’d wait out on the street. Turns out the ring was in his coat pocket and he freaked out thinking that I might find it. I was so distracted by the pretty clothes I didn’t give it much thought.

After shopping we went to Mr. Spider’s office so he could pick up his gym bag. Despite my protest, he claimed he “needed it”. As I stood in his office lobby for 10 minutes waiting for him to come back down, he was actually upstairs going over his plans and showing the ring to his coworkers. Meanwhile, I was singing along to the Christmas carols the pianist was playing in the lobby.

When we got to Central Park, the line for Wollman Rink went all the way up the hill. Of course, since the next day was New Years Eve, Central Park was tourist city. I took one look at the line and I was like okay, Plan B. But Mr. Spider insisted we wait. Because of our coats and his gym bag, we needed two lockers. Mr. Spider sent me to get our skates while he unpacked the contents of his gym bag into the tiny lockers. Still, I had no clue he was hiding anything.

Mr. Spider seemed distracted the entire 2.5 hours we skated but I attributed it to the fact that he sucks at ice skating. Several times I asked if we could go and each time he said “one more round, one more round.” Finally he said he wanted to go up to the overlook above the rink to see the sun set. Great, I thought, we’ve been skating for almost 3 hours, now we’re going to go watch people skate?

We get up there and I’m emailing the girls on his Sidekick while he’s fidgeting left and right. Somehow he talks me into standing towards the middle of the overlook. I watch the people skating and I make some comment about how crowded it still is down there. I turn to Mr. Spider and that’s when I see that he’s shaking like a leaf.

He asks me a serious of ridiculous questions that made no sense and immediately I’m like WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!?!? He tells me how on the ice he said that he always wants me to skate along side him and says that he wants me to be at his side for his whole life as well. He says other things too but I don’t hear him because I’m sobbing and screaming “oh my god, oh my god, what are you doing?”

He gets down on one knee, pulls out the ring box, flips it open and says “Will you marry me?” I’m crying, my hands are covering my face and a crowd has formed a circle around us. It seems like time is suspended. Finally Mr. Spider mumbles “You have to say yes”. And I do. Again and again and again.

Eventually we make our way to a nearby bench and the crowd follows us. Wishing us well, taking pictures and smiling like happy clams. Mr. Spider whips out two glasses and champagne from his gym bag and I sob into some old tissues I dig out of my bag. We toast to life, the life we’ve shared so far and the life we will share forever.

Mr. Spider says:

Um, Miss Spider is much better at telling stories than I am. In fact, I am not allowed to tell the story about how we met. And if you know us at all, you’ll know I’m not even really writing this myself.

I was nervous all day. Thank god I had planted the seed of doubt into Miss Spider’s brain otherwise she would have figured it out and ruined everything. She’s crazy and relentless like that. The three months I spent designing, selecting and building her ring were exhausting. I was however, able to spent a lot of quality time with Miss Spider’s mom. I had wanted to propose on our 5 and a half year anniversary December 26, 2005 but I didn’t get the ring on time. In the end, everything worked out anyway. Miss Spider was surprised. I don’t know which was better, the look of shock on her face or the look of happiness when I put the ring on. With her, no matter where or how, everything just turns out perfect.