Weddingbee Blog

I know this is supposed to be a contest for the most romantic thing your fiance has ever done for you, but I wanted to share my most romantic thing I’ve ever done for HIM! Ok brace yourself, this might be long!

My inspiration came from the movie, Amelie. My guy isn’t big on birthday celebrations. Of course, being a big planner, I *still* wanted to top last year’s birthday surprise for him (a surprise birthday party). So I had rented out a hotel suite at the W for the night and planned a candlelit picnic for the 2 of us. The home-made course included: tuna tartare over crab cake appetizers, rosemary lamb chops over roasted garlic couscous entree with zucchini and cherry tomato custard and lemon asparagus with pine nuts.

The thing is, I did not tell him what we were doing, because the plan was for him to find me! In comes the inspiration from Amelie. So during the week, I had taken 8 pictures of myself in my Zorro hat, mask, and cape holding 8 different letters of the alphabet all around the city of places we had been to. I planned 8 different spots around his large 1 bedroom apt and car to hide every picture. Behind every picture was a one-word clue for him to figure out where I placed the next picture. Once he found all 8 pictures, he had to unscramble the letters I was holding and then email me the “secret code” (it was “I love you”).

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Dear Weddingbee,

Sorry, this is a little long but the story wouldn’t be the same without the detail:

It was October 7, 2005, our 5 year anniversary, and Patrick had been working in Steamboat, Colorado the previous 11 days. He called me the night before our anniversary and told me there was a very bad snow storm passing, and he might not be able to fly out. I was disappointed but thankful that he was being cautious. The morning of our anniversary he called and said all flights were cancelled so he would try to get home the following day.

I went about my morning and got to work at 7am. At 9:30am I received a dozen pink roses with a custom card with our picture. On the back was a movie quote and it read “I love you. You complete me.- Jerry Maguire.” I thought it was really sweet of him to send me flowers even though he was stuck in Colorado.

10:30 am rolled around and I received a dozen white roses with another card, a different picture of us and a movie quote. It read “Take love, multiply it by infinity and take it to the depths of forever…and you still only have a glimpse of how I feel for you.- Meet Joe Black.” So now I thought, “Why would I get 2 dozen? Maybe I am getting 5 dozen roses for our 5 year anniversary.”

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Valentine’s Day has always been one of those holidays I let slip by without too much thought. In the past it was dinners, maybe a movie, or just a night in. Since I have met my Mr., February 14th has not gone by one year without him making me feel like the most special woman.

Our first Valentine’s together, he had just started working and didn’t have much money to throw around. A few weeks before the day he would ask me what I wanted. I replied I just wanted one of his sweatshirts to wear when he wasn’t around. Something about having a piece of your boyfriend’s clothing in your closet can make the worst day seem bearable. He insisted this was the silliest thing he had ever heard of - why would I want a smelly old sweatshirt.

The holiday was upon us, I made a fabulous dinner and it was time to exchange gifts. I opened my box and inside I found his favorite sweatshirt, a DVD of the movie we watched on our first date, and an African violet. The card told me that a bouquet of flowers just wouldn’t do because it would die in a few days. The African violet we could keep as a constant reminder.

Every occasion that I receive flowers, it is always a potted plant. Our apartment is now filled with them. I can look at each plant and remember the occasion or the event that goes with it. One day I hope to have a yard full of these little reminders.

Katie

It’s almost 5 years “officially” into the relationship and my bf still surprises me all the time. It’s hard to pick one thing but I’ll share with you the first birthday I shared with him as my bf:

I came home, exhausted, and went straight to my room to get ready to shower and rest. Upon opening the door, I noticed a mess of stuff on the floor and on my bed which really irritated me bc I had spent the morning cleaning it. I was so ready to scream until I turned on the light …

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My fiance and I love college football but we graduated from different Big 12 schools. When our teams played each other, he made arrangements to attend the game on his campus. At the last minute, our sisters expressed interest in going with us, so he said he would make their last minute flight reservations.

When we arrived there, he took us on a tour of campus. He and I walked to the top of a bell tower overlooking campus. He pointed out all the sights and then got down on one knee and said he had one last question. I had an idea of what his question was, but he completely floored me when he asked if he could “Take care of me for the rest of my life”. I said YES! and he let me ring the bells in the tower.

When we went downstairs, all of our friends and family were waiting, ringing these huge cowbells and cheering. We all went to a local bar where our favorite band was playing - and they played our song while we danced alone on the dancefloor.

He had spent the last three months secretly planning the entire trip, arranging for the bell tower to be unlocked, inviting our friends, pretending to book last minute flights for our sisters, designing my ring, and asking my entire family for their permission.
How romantic!

Katie, Texas

Our first year anniversary was a very special one. We had spent the previous month examining our relationship (aka fighting) and trying to figure out what our relationship meant. For two weeks we didn’t speak to each other to see what we really wanted. Luckily each of us realized that what we wanted was the other person. Our first anniversary was a time of celebrating and recouping from weeks of nonstop emotional drama.

I knew that my fiance had something special planned for our anniversary, but he wanted it to be a surprise. A few days before our anniversary, I returned from my lunch break to find a “Packing List” on my desk. He had snuck into my office while I was out to place it there. On the list was a wide array of items-bathing suit, hiking boots, sweater, flip flops, shorts, thermals, little black dress, sunblock-and immediately my coworker, who is now one of my bridesmaids, and I began trying to figure out where my fiance was taking me.

I don’t do well with surprises and I always try my darnedest to figure them out. To appease me I got a clue every day, including a recording on my voicemail of the Little Mermaid’s “Les Poissions,” which I was able to figure out meant we were going to a French restaurant and since there aren’t too many good French resturants in DC I was able to narrow it down to three resturants. (It killed him that I was able to figure that much out and since then I’ve never been allowed clues.)

On Friday he picked me and my huge suitcase up at my apartment and we went to a wonderful French restaurant (I was right too, it was one of the three I suspected!). After dinner we got back in the car and he started driving. It took about 30 minutes for me to realize that we were heading towards the ocean. Late that night we arrived at a beautiful bed and breakfast on the beach and spent the weekend swimming, sunning, and relaxing. The packing list had a bunch of “decoys” so that I wouldn’t know where we were going.

After dinner on Saturday he gave me my anniversary gift, a beautiful leather bound journal. I remember thinking that it was a nice gift, but I don’t keep journals. And then he produced another small box and explained the two gifts were related and that I could use the journal as a travel diary. I opened the box and inside was two plane tickets to Rome!* Of course, I used the journal to write about our amazing trip to Italy. And the journal has come on every trip we have taken together. It’s coming with me on our honeymoon.

*My fiance’s friend is a travel agent and she printed two fake plane tickets to Rome with no date so that my fiance and I could plan a time when we could both get off of work.

Adam told me that we were having dinner with his friends who recently got engaged to celebrate the good news. The plans were finalized the night before when Dave called Adam to set a time and place. Adam came home that night and said there was a change in plans and it was only going to be the two of us.

It was raining, so I asked Adam to get a cab and I would meet him downstairs. But he had a limo waiting and as soon as we got into the car, he told me that there was one more surprise. Adam had a special bottle of wine decanted at the restaurant the previous day. Since Adam is such an oneophile, I did not think this meant a possible proposal, but that Adam was excited about this 1983 wine that he had been talking about having for awhile.

Dinner lasted 3 hours and we had a great time. After dinner I figured there might be more planned and he might propose, but he said that was it, and we headed back to the apartment. I was a little disappointed… But then, when I walked into the apartment I was totally surprised. The apartment was filled wth vases of beautiful hydrangeas, irises, candles and champagne (Adam ordered floral arrangements and had them hidden by the doorman, so I would not see. Adam’s friends came to the apartment and set the stage with flowers and candles everywhere).

Adam went over to the tv and asked me to watch something. He had our favorite line of a movie set to go. Jimmy Stewart responded to the line “Will you yield?” with “For a question.” Adam asked me to yield and I said YES to the question.

Josh and I had been dating for about 4 months when I had to go away on a trip for 2 weeks with the boy I nanny for (his parents were going overseas so I was heading to the grandparent’s house in North Carolina for two weeks).

I mentioned how worried I was, as I had never met the grandparents, and Dan (the boy I nanny) had never been away from his parents for that long before. I thought maybe it would be a really stressful time, so I decided that if I “survived” the two weeks, then I would treat myself to something special when I returned. I ended up choosing a beautiful sterling silver Tiffany’s necklace, a definite splurge for me at the time, and told Josh about my plan.

The night before I left, he handed me a shoebox sized box and told me it was a “care package”. When I opened it, the inside was decorated with photos of us, diet coke (my favorite - a major necessity), advil, and a little Tiffany’s box. When I opened the little blue box, I was surprised to see the necklace I had pointed out to him as my “reward” to myself! It was an amazing surprise, and one of the sweetest, most romantic things anyone has ever done for me.

I suffer from chronic pancreatitis, an incurable, progressive disease characterized by severe abominal pain, fatigue, vomiting, and other eating issues. I’ve been with my boyfriend for going on two years, and we’ve lived together for nearly a year. When I’m in pain, he lies down with me and holds me, as gingerly as necessary. He cooks for me, he carries things for me, he does whatever is necessary.

Recently, on the way back from a trip to the Hamptons, we had to pull over so I could vomit on the side of the road. People, mostly obnoxious young men, yelled rude things at me out of their cars. I had vomit in my hair, and felt ill, exhausted, dirty, and humiliated. When I got back in the car, I started crying, saying, “I hate this! I’m disgusting. Why are you even with me?!?” He took my hand and told me, “I love you. And you’re so beautiful. All the time.” And I could tell he meant it. Nothing is better than someone who truly thinks you’re beautiful even with vomit in your hair.

Debra

My fiance is a true romantic. He’s performed a number of these acts of romance over the years. Two particularly stand out and both end with me receiving a ring!

After we had been dating for about three or four months, things had gotten serious and we both knew we were truly in love. One weeknight he called me and said he really wanted to see me. He came to my apartment and gave me a rose. Sitting on the rosebud was a star sapphire ring. He explained that his father had gotten a star sapphire ring for himself when he knew he was in love with my fiance’s mother. He told me that because he knew how much he loved me that he had started to wear his father’s ring. Now we had a matching set.

But, that ring would eventually have to be replaced. He replaced it with my beautiful engagement ring on a surprise trip to Ireland (I thought we were going to Northern California)! He took me to a Castle and Lord’s Manor for our first few days and proposed there. He had actually given me a painting (sneakily through his parents) the Christmas before the trip that now hung in our bedroom. When he proposed at the lord’s manor, he asked if anything looked familiar - it was the house in the painting! Turns out he had planned the trip for seven months and wanted to somehow share the plans with me without giving away the surprise, so he had a picture from the manor’s website made into a painting. And now we have a beautiful memory of our trip.

For me, the most romantic part of his elaborate plans is that he really planned it all with the intention of making it as special as possible for me. My grandparents were from Ireland and it has always been my favorite place to spend time. I was also able to visit some relatives throughout my trip - it was truly magical!

Brianne Whelan
Washington, DC
Engaged March 12, 2006
Getting Married October 6, 2007

My romantic story is from Valentines Vay this year. My BF is a doctor and was working a particularly busy ward on Valentines Day this year, but was adamant that he would be home in time to cook me dinner that night. My BF is on record as maintaining that as long as you use two ingrediants, it counts as cooking: adding cheese on top of an oven pizza: cooking. Two portion microwave meal: cooking.

I meanwhile, channel Martha Stewart at any opportunity so I was apprehensive to say the least. We live together, so I got home, cleaned up a bit (myself and the house) and put some champagne in the freezer, expecting him home within the half hour. An hour and a half later he comes home and shuts himself in the kitchen. An hour after that, I’m foot tapping and feeling rather lonesome trying to maintain an alluring position on the couch and getting pretty hungry…

Eventually he appears … with a three course spectacular. We have soup to start (fresh packaged but not tinned at least!) with bruschetta. Then *spatchcocked chicken* (!!!) with gratin potatoes, caramalized orange, carrots and beans on the side. Then for dessert, a layered mango, chocolate sauce and cream sundae. I was blown away.

It transpired that he had been on the train home from the hospital using his palm pilot and mobile phone to go online, look up recipes and then went to three different supermarkets trying to find the ingredients. The rather random oranges on the side of the main course were “from a duck recipe but I thought they looked nice”! The fact that he went to so much effort for me, when it really wasn’t his idea of an evening well spent, meant so much more to me than booking a table at the nearest restaurant.

For our first anniversary, he also spent two weeks tracking down and eventually driving two hours to find a jeweller to get a matching bracelet for a ring I’d purchased. The boutique where I’d purchased it no longer carried the line. This was all in time for a surprise trip to meet me while I was on tour in Edinburgh.

I go in for big gestures and fanfares and it’s really easy to miss the quiet lengths he goes to to make me happy and feel loved. I promised myself after Valentines this year to expect less grandeur and I will get far more romance. And it’s been so true.

Helen
London

Some days when I wake up in the morning to get ready for work, I find a post-it note written by my fiance. They say the sweetest things. Here are some examples:

“Most of the sidewalks are not shoveled. Call a cab 30 min. before you want to leave…cab names & numbers” (FYI - We live in NJ so we can’t hail a cab on the street.)

“Plug me in. Turn me on. Coffee will come out.” (I found this note on the coffee maker one morning.)

“I love you. You are my heart.”

I keep some of my favorite notes in my wallet to remind me how fortunate I am to have such a wonderful person in my life.

-ocicats

My most romantic story is probably my engagement story. On Christmas eve, at my grandmother’s house, with all my family around, he hands me a Christmas card. I thought we were going to watch Harry Potter, so I had changed into my pjs and climbed onto the couch. But inside the card was a dvd he had titled “Chapter One.” I put the dvd in and heard his favorite Christmas carol playing (”Christmas Canon” by Trans-Siberian Orchestra). To the music, he had made a slideshow of our entire relationship together with pictures of us- from one of our first dates all the way up to that Thanksgiving- and clips of our favorite movies (The Royal Tennenbaums, The Princess Bride, even an old clip of Saturday Night live with Eddie Murphy as Gumby).

It turns out that for months, he had been scanning pictures into the computer and taking the files to a video producer in the suburbs 30 minutes away to make this video for me. And I got to share the most amazing moment of my life with my entire family on our favorite night of the year. (And the ring he picked out on his own? Couldn’t have been more perfect if I had done it myself!)

- cella

The most romantic thing my boyfriend has ever done for me was our three-year anniversary celebration. I had known he was planning something for awhile before the actual date, but I didn’t know what. I knew it would be something good, because he is VERY good at surprising me.

He told me to dress up and be ready to go by 6pm on our anniversary, May 8. He was wearing a suit when he picked me up and I started to get very excited! He drove for a little while then told me I had to close my eyes for the rest of the drive. I kept guessing where we were and asking him if I was right, but he wouldn’t tell me; he just said to keep my eyes closed. Finally, he told me to open my eyes and we were at the nicest hotel in the city, and I knew we were going to Cygnus, a really nice restaurant on the top floor of the hotel. Right before our amazing dinner, he handed me a gift bag. Inside was the cutest Coach purse ever! I had wanted it for so long but never would buy it for myself.

He was acting really worried about the time, so I asked him if there was something else, and he replied, “Maybe.” So we left the hotel and started walking, and he led me to a horse drawn carriage! I was so excited because I had always wanted to take a carriage ride around the city. It was so beautiful and it was such an amazing night. My boyfriend is truly a romantic!

Katy

This story is actually a combination romantic vacation/engagement story, because by the end of it we were engaged!

It was October of last year. Jeff was attending a university down in St. Louis (about 200 miles from my university) for the semester, while I stayed behind at the University we both attend, and he’d attended previously. We had been talking about camping almost since we got together but had never gotten around to it.

The whole semester that Jeff was studying in St. Louis, he would come visit me every single weekend, often making the four-hour drive after he got off work at 10 each evening. We would usually spend the weekends doing normal “couple-y” things, despite the dearth of entertainment in my small college town.

That weekend Jeff told me to keep the entire weekend free of plans, which was slightly unusual. I’d sort of had an inkling that we might go camping, but didn’t expect much of it. Well, he arrived in town as usual and quickly spirited me away from my dorm. I saw that the backseat was full of camping gear, coolers, and such, so (not being a complete idiot) I figured out what he was up to…or so I thought!

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