Wedding Blog

I waited a bit on posting my engagement story, but I thought that there wasn’t a better time to pay homage to Mr. Lemon’s devious plans than my favorite week in fall!

We’ll start with a little background before I breakdown the big event. I’m a diehard UCLA fan, and I’ve been that way for 20+ years. I belong to secret societies, recruited athletes as an undergrad and have blue/gold Christmas lights that I made myself by painstakingly replacing every other bulb. That’s me :). Mr. Lemon, on the other hand, went to a California liberal arts school where his current roommate played football for the 100 fans each week. While Mr. Lemon did spend a few days as the college mascot, collegiate sports just weren’t a part of his life. And then the poor guy met me.

On our first trip to the Rose Bowl, he tried to call in sick. I immediately started crying of disappointment, to which he gave in and hopped in the car anyway. We got into quite a tiff on the drive to Pasadena, and it only subsided after I tried to pull off and turn the car around. However, magic happened when he got there. He cheered and screamed and had a glorious time, and made it to three more games that season. He played “NCAA College Football” on his XBox religiously, and even manually imported the entire roster to make it seem more realistic. He began taunting his Trojan co-workers, and even his poor mom (she’s a USC alum, his dad’s a Notre Dame alum, and then they both got their PhD’s at UCLA). Mr. Lemon had fully engaged in my fandom, but I didn’t know how much until April rolled around this year.

About a week prior to Friday, April 7th, Mr. Lemon asked about my plans for that day. I didn’t seem to have any classes that day, and it looked pretty free to me. On Wednesday, he asked me again about keeping the day clear for a surprise. I got a little suspicious of a weekend trip away, so I asked what I needed to wear and if I needed to “pack” anything. I was told that comfy shoes were paramount, and that an overnight bag would help. So, those clues led me to believe we were going on a hike or heading to Disneyland for the day. However, when I mentioned it to my friends at school, they immediately jumped to the “he’s going to propose!!!” mode. I quickly dismissed that notion and approached Friday with open thoughts about what was going to happen.

He picked me up at 9:30am, and when we started going north on the freeway, my Disneyland assumptions were dashed. I said, “Well I guess we aren’t visiting Mickey today,” and he replied that he had to do a little work assignment before the surprise started, but that I’d enjoy it. When we got off the freeway in Pasadena, I gasped, “Are we going to the Rose Bowl?!?” I got a nod of agreement and I suddenly turned quite giddy. Mr. Lemon had worked on projects there before, so when he fed me the story that he was working on the new NFL stadium plans, I totally bought into it. In fact, I didn’t suspect anything as we went through security, or as we waited for the general manager of the stadium to arrive. I didn’t notice Mr. Lemon pacing back and forth, or him nervously clutching my hands on strange occasions. I was just trying to stay out of his way, since he was on a work assignment and all!

As we were escorted onto the field and Mr. Lemon started walking to the 50-yard line, all I could think about was the beautiful spring day and the amazing smell of the freshly cut grass on the field. I stayed at a distance while he fiddled with his camera in preparation to take some photos, when he suddenly called me over to him. I figured he wanted me to hold his camera bag or get something from his car, but instead he grabbed my hands and put his forehead on mine and started shaking.

I was quite confused in the moment and thought he had to tell me a “secret” that the field manager shouldn’t hear (yes - I’m THAT slow) when he uttered, “It’s been 1 year, 1 month and 7 days since I first met you…” and the rest of his speech became a complete blur. I closed my eyes, started shaking and put my hands up to my mouth in disbelief. It was only after I opened them up again that I realized Mr. Lemon was down on one knee with a super sparkly thing in a box. I couldn’t get the words out and nodded instead. He then handed his camera (which had been the secret ring carrier) to the field manager, who snapped a few pictures that certified my pure astonishment and joy.

I remained speechless until we got back to the car (minus lots of “thank you’s” to the field manager who graciously allowed us to have such a special moment). We left and drove a short way to the Los Angeles Arboretum, where we walked around the gardens and made our phone calls to family and friends (side note: people are EXTRA surprised to get a call from you at noon on a Friday to say you just got engaged an hour ago). We spent the afternoon in Pasadena and the night at the Westin, only to return to real life on Saturday morning.

When I asked why Mr. Lemon picked the Rose Bowl, he said that just the thought of it made me happy, so why not associate something so special with a place that I loved. Everyone that heard the story knew how perfectly “me” it was… and now it’s part of “us.”