Weddingbee Blog

No, I’m not talking about the vehicle through which Betty White revitalized her career. I’m talking about the event that turned Mr. Unicycle into my fian-SAY.

Here’s how that shiz went down. I drove up to Milwaukee—the land of beer, cheese, and the bronze Fonz—to visit my boyf one weekend, as I often do. We were planning on taking a mini trip up to Cedarburg—the land of wool, old people, and more wool—the next day.

Image via Historic Cedarburg

As I was getting ready to go to sleep Friday night at around 11 PM (what can I say, I’m old—I’m practically a dad), the boyf announced that he’d be waking me up early in the morning.

“Exactly how early?” I questioned. I’m a details person and, let’s face it, the wool could wait. He told me 5 AM.

“What?!” As if I didn’t realize the world even existed at such an ungodly hour. Then he told me he’d made surprise breakfast reservations for us, so we had to get there on time.

“Food! Well, OK then.” And just like that, he was able to convince me to get up at 5 AM. Easy as pie—and it damn well better be a la mode.

The next morning as we were driving to “Cedarburg,” he popped in a mix CD he’d made for the occasion. Love song after love song after meaningful song after beautiful ballad played, and I sang along loudly and annoyingly, the prospect of food on the very near horizon keeping my spirits high.

When he got off the highway downtown and pulled into a parking lot near the lake, I got confused. “What’s this? This isn’t Cedarburg. Where’s the restaurant? Why’d you bring mini muffins in the car?“ (To be honest, I still don’t know why he brought mini muffins. This has plagued me for the past five months.)

Image via Hostess

He told me we were going to watch the sunrise. This was my REAL surprise. I have to admit, I was slightly disappointed to not be going to breakfast, but then I realized that no self-respecting restaurant would be open before the sun was up anyway. I had to admit defeat—I’d been duped. Watching the sunrise sounded beautiful and wonderful and romantic, and it was something I’d been wanting to do for a while, but I was never able to drag my lazy rear out of bed in time.

“Great!” I said. “We’ve got a great view from here, too.” But he informed me that we’d be watching it up close, from outside the car. Might I add that it was March in Milwaukee, by the lake, and it was indeed snowing?

Image via Visa Lighting

This is what the Milwaukee lakefront sunrise would have looked like if it hadn’t been SNOWING.

After hemming and hawing and forcing him to get the itchy-scratchy emergency blanket from his trunk, I agreed to walk to the shore with him. The 100 feet we walked was the coldest walk of my life (not true at all, actually), and the whole time I kept begging him to let us watch the majesty of the friggin’ sunrise from the warmth of his car.

“Boyf, I realize how romantic and wonderful this gesture is, so can we just watch from the car and I’ll still give you boyfriend points for the effort?” I begged. He insisted that we just stand there for a little while. Then he started saying nice things to me—things I can’t repeat here because they made my insides melt and my knees shake and my eyes water, and that would make me lose all my street cred (also I forgot what he said)—and before I knew it, he was down on one knee and there was some bling on my finger. I interrupted him, as usual, to say yes, and followed that up with “Can we go back to the car now?”

When we got back to the car, my fian-SAY and I watched the sun come up and immediately disappear behind some clouds, while the veritable blizzard raged all around us. And we ate mini muffins.

Personal pic

We don’t have any pics of us from the engagement day, so you’ll have to settle for this one.

Did you ruin or almost ruin your own proposal? How’d you do it??