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:
I’ve been so busy blogging about our wedding plans that I’ve completely neglected to share the story of how this whole thing began — with a surprise proposal that was every bit as thoughtful, creative, and hilarious as the man who planned it.
When I turned 30 last year, Mr. HC and I didn’t do very much to celebrate; the day before my birthday, he took the grueling Step 1 of the medical board exams, and on my birthday, we found out that one of our dearest friends was diagnosed with cancer. So for my 31st birthday, Mr. HC suggested we make up for the previous year by taking a weekend trip somewhere. Up until the week before, though, he kept telling me that he hadn’t made any plans and that we’d probably end up just going someplace nearby, like Provincetown, MA. But a few days before my birthday, Mr. HC’s cousins emailed me and “accidentally” told me that we’d be seeing them that weekend in Toronto. I thought I was super clever and had figured out his secret plan.
Read more…

As I mentioned earlier, the trip to Naples, Florida with Champ our sophomore year of college was where I really fell in love with my best friend. So it only seemed fitting that five years later we would visit the same spots, swim at the same beach, and enjoy the same company we had enjoyed so much before. When Mr. C asked if I would be interested in heading back to Naples, my heart fluttered a little in hope that this would be “THE vacation.” So off we went to Naples!

Miss Avocado is back and ringless no more! Let’s dive right into the magical proposal, shall we? As you may know, we had an engagement shoot scheduled for the weekend that we were in Mexico on a vacation sponsored by Mr. Avocado’s company. I did not know that my little Suavocado had slyly converted a portion of our engagement shoot to a proposal shoot as well.
Before we dive into the pictures, let me give you a little bit of back story (or if you are like me, you will just scroll down immediately to see them, and then come back up and read the story afterwards).
When we left on Wednesday, I was positive I would have a ring on my finger by Saturday night. Mr. Av spent the entire weekend attempting to confuse me. First he tells me that we can’t shoot engagement photos Saturday night because he wants to have some time for just the two of us. The next day he tells me it doesn’t matter if Saturday night is free or not and acts like I am crazy for suggesting we might want to avoid making plans. Saturday night’s engagement shoot didn’t quite go as planned with fog and rain and stormy clouds forcing us to hike all over the coast of Mexico in an attempt to find a beach that wasn’t either (a) private or (b) flooded out by a river of muddy water.
Read more…
Relationship Day is what we call the day Mr. Espresso proposed.
December 21, 2007:
After a long day of shuffling through crowds to finish our Christmas shopping, a spur of the moment date night was just what I needed. Thank goodness I had enough time for a hot shower to relax my tired, worn muscles… too many bags and a purse full of lists had taken a toll on my shoulders. Out of the shower and into some charcoal gray slacks and a slimming black sweater: my go to outfit when I need to look nice on the run. Make- up and a partial blow dry. I’m done.
“Baby it’s cold outside.”
So glad I picked up that cashmere scarf at the thrift store last week. Three dollars was such a steal! And the color- periwinkle blue- makes me love it even more. I add a black wool coat to the scarf and I’m ready to go.
Mr. Pinot Noir and I had been dating for more than four years when he finally popped the question. We were in the middle of moving from Washington, DC to New York City. It was our first official day living in NYC… It started off as a fairly uneventful day. We went for coffee, went to our new gym, and looked at a few apartments for sale in our new neighborhood. Then we decided to do something very “touristy New York” to celebrate our first day in the city. Mr. Pinot Noir suggested that we go ice skating at Rockefeller Center. Neither of us had gone ice skating in many, many years but we decided to give it a try!

We had been dating for almost seven years when Mr. Margarita decided to propose. I knew we were getting close to an engagement when Mr. Margarita suggested our families meet. Though our parents had casually met before at our college graduation, we arranged a formal meeting of the families over dinner at my brother’s house. As I’m sure it is with many cultures, the approval and general happiness of our families was a huge factor in our future together. Neither set of parents had expressed any major concerns about the fact that we were of different cultures and religions so I was mostly nervous about how the families would interact. My mom is loud, vivacious but my Dad is very quiet, soft spoken and generally prefers to do his own thing. Well it turns out that his family is very much the same way so it worked out well. The moms gabbed all night while the dads sat on the couch being entertained by my older brother.
Read more…
Mr. Pomegranate was not to be thwarted again when putting together his second proposal plan - he didn’t tell a soul! Two days after the ring arrived at the jewelry store, sized perfectly to my finger, he started to “prep me.” We were going to attend the California State Fair later that week with a group of our friends, an annual tradition of food, fun and festivities. To switch it up, Mr. Pom arranged for us to go on a different day - which set us up for a romantic summer night alone to enjoy the State Fair all by our lonesome.
Of course, there has to be a little deviation from the perfection - which adds humor to the tale. On the way in, Mr. Pom set off the metal detector. I hadn’t noticed as I was peeking in at all the lights and glitz. While I was distracted, Mr. Pom whispered to the security guy, “It’s an engagement ring!” The security guard discreetly apologized and quickly passed him through. Whew!
We wandered around; stopping to take a look at the Toytopia exhibit - very cool - where there was a Zoltar machine (ie. the movie Big). Mr. Pom gave me a $1 for a prediction. The winded speech from Zoltar made little sense, but the tear-off card that ensued spoke of a future love. I must admit, I started to suspect something - but honestly, who could rig a Zoltar machine to do something like that?
Read more…
After dating for a good 6 months, we were in love. Mr. Pomegranate and I were in that giddy state of mind where we JUST KNEW that we’d be together forever. But, marriage? It hadn’t even crossed my mind.
On occasion, we’d entertain our friends at Mr. Pom’s fantastic apartment, complete with a barbecue on the patio overlooking a grand cityscape. This particular party included my best friend (who is now my MOH), one of Mr. Pom’s best friends and his current girlfriend (who I will refer to as Girlfriend), and one of Mr. Pom’s co-workers. We were all having a great time, with Mr. Pom’s co-worker cooking us a fabulous meal of steak and asparagus, drinks mixed by Mr. Pom’s best friend and lots of joking and laughing.
Read more…
The best part of our engagement - it was totally unexpected. Yet I still needed to pick out my ring. Huh? Okay, let me explain. After a year of long-distance, Mr. Coconut was doing a visiting semester at my school. The greatest thing about this was matching spring breaks! The year before, our spring breaks were a week apart, so we drove to see each other but the other had to attend class all week. Yes, it was terrible. You can imagine how geeked we were to finally take a true vacation together! Neither of us had been on a cruise, so we thought it would be fun.
Our first port was Costa Maya, Mexico. Unfortunately, being poor students we couldn’t partake in any of the excursions so we were stuck at this outdoor mall for the entire time. For kicks, we stopped into a jewelry store. I suppose this is where I should explain Mr. Coconut’s obsession with deals and debt-free living. Mr. Coconut hates having a monthly payment on anything (he bought his 1992 Honda Civic on Ebay for $2000). He also loves a good bargain and will try to negotiate everything (he would negotiate at Target if he could). How about Miss Coconut? Oh heck no. I can’t negotiate for squat, I’ll pay exactly what’s on the price tag. I’m also not as obsessed with being debt-free as Mr. Coconut, which definitely requires some compromise!
Read more…