Weddingbee Blog

Or, “How to Go on a Trip and Come Back Engaged.”

Bossyboots and I had been discussing marriage since about the second week of dating. If we would have had our acts together the first time, we’d be married with six kids right now.

Or two. Two kids sounds much better to my uterus. And my tolerable auditory threshold.

Anyway. We started talking about marriage for serious when we hit twelve months of dating. I was definitely ready to actually “put a ring on it” before he was. I’ve done the long-term dating-that-turns-into-disaster thing already. For me, dating for beaucoup years before commitment was not acceptable. I knew who I wanted to smooch until the end of time, and that smoochee was Bossyboots.

And so ensued six months of talking and talking and more talking. With a little ring shopping thrown in here and there.

Finally, we were at Christmas 2010.

I had just returned from visiting my family for the holiday, and Bossyboots and I were out to dinner after he picked me up from the airport. We were supposed to have a lovely convo about the engagement rings we’d been checking out. Instead we proceeded to have the most ridiculous argument of all time. Cue crying behind the locked, bathroom door please. (with Bossyboots trying to get me to let him in. Um no—how can I make you feel bad for making me cry unless I torture you? Exactly.)

I’m not gonna lie, up until our huge argument, a teeny part of me thought that maybe Bossyboots was planning to propose over New Year’s. We had a weekend NYE trip planned to our favorite tiny Illinois town, at our favorite bed and breakfast. It’d be perfect, no? Alas, I knew that argument boded no good in the bling department.

SO, I let my little engagement hope die a dramatic death, and we set off in Bossyboots’ car for Galena the next day. No more tears.

After three hours on the icy road, we finally hit Galena - it’s admittedly totally for people who like to knit cat scarves, but we love its little tchotchke self anyway.

We spent a couple days there, visiting President Grant’s home…

Shopping…

And burning our faces off with hot sauce:

With all that walking around, we took a break with a cappuccino or five (you know, so that we could subsequently induce a racing heart attack).

Finally, it was time for our lovely New Year’s Eve dinner, which was delicioso.

Afterwards, it was about 9 PM, and we headed back to our room at the bed and breakfast.

This is where things got ridiculous.

So, we bundle into our room, and I find that Bossyboots and I have very different ideas about what we’re supposed to do on New Year’s Eve. Suffice to say, I wanted a fun New Year’s Eve, and Bossyboots wanted to watch Dick Clark’s Rocking New Year’s Show on TV.

I have been working on my compromising skillz, so I decided to be nice and go along with Bossyboot’s boring TV plans. We even played Clue. CLUE, people. I love Clue as much as the next lady, but… not on a national party day.

At 11 PM, Dick Clark decided it was time to go to bed—thank you, Jesus. I thought this meant I was free from crochet time on the couch. Nope. Bossyboots decided we need to watch the repeat because the first airing was not in our time zone.

OK, I will pause while you read the previous paragraph again, because really, it was too ridiculous to be believed. Bossyboots was turning 93 before my eyes.

Again, I summoned my skills of compassion (I had graduated from compromise to full-on compassion). And we sat there and watched the repeat—every single second—until Bossyboots broke out the champagne at 11:45 PM!

He poured us both a flute o’ fancy bubbly, and at midnight we got all teary-eyed with the “I love you” and the “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me.”  I knew things were getting weird when Bossyboots stood up and started acting really nervous and telling me he had a present for me. I didn’t put things together until the ring box (ohmigod) made its appearance, and that man was on one knee.

Much smooching, tears, hugs and phone calls ensued. He promises never to make me watch that Dick Clark show ever again.

Here’s a photo of us at about 3 AM, when the ruckus had all died down and we had alerted all of the appropriate friends and family members. Don’t judge our bedraggled appearance—I had been watching Dick Clark for three hours on repeat—you’d look a hot mess, too.