Weddingbee Blog

So by now you all know how we met, how I seduced him with my potato-masher-fan skillz, and how we decided on my ballin’ engagement ring. Now I’m gonna tell y’all about the proposal. Pull up a chair, grab a drink, and get your excited pants on, because this one’s long. And awesome.

I knew it was coming… at some point. It was December, and we had the ring. It was in the closet, staring at me every day in its pretty blue Tiffany’s bag. “Hey, Miss Scissors! Look at me! I’m all wrapped up and you can’t see me yet!” My ring was a tease.

I had a few ideas of dates in mind, I won’t lie. Most pre-engaged girls have a mental list of dates that it “might happen”. I sure as hell did. Since we picked it up in mid-December, I figured the most likely dates would be either Christmas, New Year’s Eve, our technical one-year anniversary (January 14), my birthday (January 25), or Valentine’s Day. I didn’t want to get my hopes up for any specific date, because I didn’t want to ruin any of those holidays by having myself convinced that “THIS IS IT GUYS” and then it not happening. I tried to go with the flow. The keyword is “tried”.

A few days before Christmas, we packed up to go down to my parents’ house for the first half of Christmas. We had about eleventeen billion trips to make to the car, and I always made sure I was the last one out every time. Why? So I could sneak my little head into the broom closet to see if the little blue box was still there. It was. Every time. We set off, and I was a little quiet and a little sad. Oh, well I know it’s not Christmas. I bucked up, and got excited about wrapping all of the Christmas presents and celebrating with family.

That’s when stuff started getting weird. My father was extra chipper, and almost as soon as we walked into the door, he blurted, “Mr. S and I are driving to Alabama to get great fireworks! It’s going to be exciting. Miss S, you should just stay here, ’cause I know you have a lot of stuff to do. And we’ll do this so we can get the good ones and not have to stop on the way down to the beach. Oh, look at this cool blowtorch I got!” He then proceeded to demonstrate the blowtorch’s coolness to us right in the middle of the kitchen.

I couldn’t even focus on the craziness that was a blowtorch-in-the-kitchen, because my mind started going 1,000 miles an hour. Getting fireworks two days before Christmas? We weren’t going to the beach until the 29th. Why did they need to go now? Why all the secrecy? Why were they driving 2 hours out of the way just for fireworks when we could get them on the way down? My Spidey-senses were on high alert. I started prodding my mother. “They’re in cahoots about something.”

“No, they’re probably just being guys.”

Christmas came and went, it was fantastic, but there was no proposal. We went back up to Atlanta for Christmas Part II with his family, and no dice there either. It must be New Year’s Eve. That’s when we met. I bet it’s New Year’s Eve. I felt pleased with myself, but when we left Atlanta for the second time, this time to go down for NYE, the blue bag stayed behind.

The day before NYE, Mr. S and my father started getting extra fishy again. “Mr. S and I are going to go pack up the fireworks and stuff for tomorrow night! We’re also going to play with the blowtorch. Safety stuff, and all that. We have to have the blowtorch so the wind won’t stop the fireworks from lighting.” Fair enough; I knew that he and I were going to shoot off fireworks together at midnight, but I didn’t understand why they had to go have secret pack-up time. They were all jumbly, excited, and just acting strange.

On NYE day, my mother took me to get my nails done, which was not too out-of-the-ordinary, given that Mr. S and I were getting all dressed up that night for a big celebration at Red Bar. I picked her brain for the entire two hours we were there. I asked her if she thought he would propose, what would happen if he proposed, did she know anything, what should I expect, everything. I knew if she knew something, I could crack her. I could get myself prepared. Perhaps he snuck the ring somewhere else, and the blue bag was just a decoy! She didn’t break, and I can read my mother like a book. If she has a secret or knows something, I could get it out of her. I knew it wasn’t going to be that night.

We got dressed up, went out, had a lot of fun at the bar, watched some soccer moms dirty dance on the tables and bar, watched horrified 20-somethings as said moms tried to grind in their faces, and had some fun celebrating midnight for the Eastern time zone. As much fun as we had, Mr. S was jittery the entire time. He was fairly quiet at points, and then super yappy at points. I attributed it to the awkwardness of the soccer moms, or the fact that we rarely drink.

Anyways, my sweet parents came to pick us up so that we could get home in time to celebrate the second midnight, local central time, and not have to worry about driving and drinking. We rushed upstairs, took off our party clothes, and changed into the warmest stuff we had brought, because it’s a windy cold mess on the beach in December. Mr. S got his packed-up-box-doo-dad, and I carried the mammoth flashlight as we walked down to the beach. I’m terrified of explosives, so I took it upon myself to be the official flashlight-holder.

By that point in time, I convinced myself it wasn’t going to happen. We were just going to look at stars, and be relaxed and calm. I was just enjoying being outside, and he was jumping around like a person on crack. Mr. Jittery-Pants said, “Miss Scissors, I have a surprise for you!”

Oh God, this is it. I’m so excited. I can’t believe he’s about to pro-

“I’ve been trying to hide it, but now I don’t have to! My big surprise is that your dad and I got SUPER huge fireworks and lots of them! Isn’t that exciting?!”

“Uh-huh.” I was so confused as to why extra fireworks would be such an extra big surprise. I love watching fireworks, but I didn’t understand why that would be such a secret.

Mr. Jitters proceeded to light several fireworks-stump-things with the blowtorch, I stood way back, and then he lit them exactly at midnight. They really were beautiful, and it was so sweet and romantic. He reloaded a second set, and asked, “Do you want to light one?!”

“No.”

“Sure?”

“No, I don’t want to blow myself up. Those big things scare me. I stick to sparklers, you know that.”

He was standing in front of me, and I thought nothing of it. “What if it wasn’t one of those big ones.” He then reached into his jacket. “What about this one?”

It was the Tiffany’s box.

I blacked out. I was seriously surprised, and instantly started cry-squeal-shaking. I don’t know what it was. It was quiet and spazzy, but I was frozen. I held the box in my hands and couldn’t move.

I came out of my haze for a second. Where am I? Is he going to get on one knee? Oh crap, I’m still wearing this stupid Juicy Couture ring on my ring finger. Crap crap crap. “Wait a second.” I yanked the ring off and shoved it into my pocket. “OK, you can go on.”

“You should open the box.”

I opened the box, he picked up the ring, got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him, and put the ring on my finger. All I remember is saying thank you over and over. And being awkward. And crying. And covering his face with kisses. And just about smiling my whole face off. He was shaking like a leaf, and we squealed and spazzed out together. We lit off the other set off fireworks, and I came out of my delirious haze.

“Mr. S! Crap! Did I say yes? I hope so! Yes yes yes yes yes yes!”

He laughed, “Yes, you did.”

And that’s how we got engaged.

Who else knew that their engagement was imminent, but was still blown away when the proposal came? What ridiculous crying noises did you make, if any?