Weddingbee Blog

For those of you kind enough to be following the Hot Cocoas’ engagement story, you’ll remember that after a close run-in with Canadian immigration, we landed in Prince Edward Island, the destination of my surprise 31st birthday trip. P.E.I.’s tourism industry is centered around Anne of Green Gables. But while quite a bit of it is faux-Avonlea (complete with a faux village in which tourists sporting faux-Anne braids interact with faux-Annes, Dianas, and Gilberts), it’s also a real maritime province — rustic, charming, authentic:

We arrived at our B&B, the Elmwood Inn, and our wonderful innkeepers, Carol and Jay, greeted us with fresh flowers in our suite, my favorite Lime Green Tea Snapples in the mini-fridge, and a stack of exceedingly specific Google Map directions. They also seemed incredibly insistent that we use the directions that night to see the sunset. Their zeal struck me as a bit odd, but I just thought that P.E.I. people were really proud of their sunsets. After all, even daytime in P.E.I. was picture perfect:

Mr. Hot Cocoa had made dinner reservations for us at the Dayboat Restaurant. We arrived over an hour late because a cartographically challenged Hot Cocoa got us completely lost. In my defense, all the roads were numbered, not named; it was like a group of geeks from MIT got high on math and went to town. We had a delicious and leisurely meal, but as the sun began to set, our waiter Tony started getting oddly pushy, bringing us dessert before we had even ordered it, bringing the check before we were even finished with dessert, essentially speeding us out of the restaurant. What was up with these people and their preoccupation with the sunset? It was like we were in some Bram Stoker novel.

It turned out that Mr. HC had contacted the innkeepers and the restaurant almost a month before our arrival and had told them all about his plan to propose at sunset near the Cavendish coast. He had even chosen a particular location to propose, pinpointing on Google Earth the location of the scene in the “Anne of Green Gables” movie in which Anne and Diana watch the sunset on the red cliffs of P.E.I. (I’ve always loved what Anne said to Diana in that scene: “We are rich . . . . Look at that sea — all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn’t enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds.”) Of course, my map skills (or lack thereof) had made us so late that the sun was practically down by the time we left the restaurant. Alas, we didn’t quite make it to the location that Mr. HC had so painstakingly mapped. But we found a site with a spectacular view of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where I, still clueless, proceeded to take a zillion pictures of the sunset.

I think I was still taking pictures when Mr. HC, thankfully ignoring the sign above, said, “I have a question to ask you.” Of course, Little Miss Snarky that I am, I was probably about to say something like “No, I will not stop taking stupid pictures!” But as the sun was disappearing over the horizon, Mr. HC got on one knee (on a concrete block, no less) and proposed.

And I managed to overcome my shock and tears to say yes, but only after making him asking me multiple times. Because the only thing better than one romantic proposal is multiple romantic proposals!

Once we got back to our suite at the Elmwood, we discovered that our hosts not only had stayed up to greet us and hear our happy news, but also left us champagne and chocolates. I didn’t know how to take a picture that would capture the radiance and beauty of the ring that Mr. HC had gotten from Brilliant Earth. Here’s a trying-too-hard to be artistic photo of it in my birthday bouquet. It’s not going to win me any WPJA awards.

For all you kindred spirits out there, we did in fact go to Green Gables the next day (my actual birthday). We strolled Lovers’ Lane, which you can see in the photo below is basically a glorified muddy path, but I suppose Anne would say that this just means there’s scope for imagination.

And we spent a wonderful day getting deliberately lost (not my fault this time!) around P.E.I. I got some lovely shots of the island’s famous red cliffs.

Then it was time to leave the island. Remember how Mr. HC left his passport on the plane?

Well, he did eventually recover his passport from lost and found at Ottawa airport (though we spent most of our flight from Charlottetown planning a life of exile in Ottawa). So we didn’t get stuck in Canada. We didn’t get sent to Gitmo. We didn’t get suckered into buying any chintzy Anne of Green Gables crap (a Green Gables thimble, anyone?), except a bottle of Anne’s Raspberry Cordial, which I had to have. I don’t usually believe in perfection, but all in all, I’d say it was a perfect weekend . . . because after fourteen years of dating, the Hot Cocoas were engaged!