Thursday, March 19, 2015

The All Important Question

March 20th is Proposal Day. To celebrate I am sharing my proposal story. SPOILER ALERT: I said yes!

I met my husband through my sister a little over 5 years ago. Her family was taking Brazilian Jiu Jitsu classes from him. Eventually, my sister invited him over to hang out and watch football (and to meet her sister - she just didn't tell him that part). I knew what she was up to, but I will be honest, I never thought he would be interested in me. I saw him as the super athletic martial arts instructor...pretty much the opposite of me.
For a shy person I am still stunned that I technically asked him out first. We had gone to a school play with my sister's family (but not "together"). Then about a week later I went to watch one the Jiu Jitsu classes (and the cute instructor). It was the most beautiful of fall days and I wanted to go hiking at the state park. My sister's family was busy...sooo...I said "hey, what are you doing this afternoon?"  He said he was going to go by his parents' house and help his dad clean out a shed (or something like that). I must not have been listening too closely because the next thing out of my mouth was "do you want to go hiking at the park?"  Awkward pause...and then he said "sure". It turned out to be the most memorable date of my life :)
I have mentioned before on my blog that I waited a long time to find "the one".  I was 40 years old when I met my now husband. He is about 5 years younger than I am. I was a little self-conscious about my age and it was never brought up. He had gone to school with my sister and she is the same age as he is. I don't really know if he knew I was the older sister or not. I just never brought it up. I remember one day he was with me in the car when I stopped to pick up a prescription. The first question out of the clerk's mouth was "what is your date of birth?" WHAT??  You want me to tell you my age in front of my boyfriend??  Either he didn't do the math or he didn't care.  Most importantly he didn't run away :)
We dated for about a year and he had "made it clear" that he was not interested in getting married again. So based on that I was not expecting him to propose, but there were a couple of times it crossed my mind. One time I remember being in the car and him holding my hand. There was a moment I caught him looking at my hand with an odd expression. I just felt like he was checking out my finger to maybe determine my ring size. It was a fleeting thought.
On Christmas Eve we had spent the evening at my sister's house and then came back to my house to exchange Christmas presents to each other. He had put my present under my tree almost a week before Christmas. It was the size of a shoebox, but much too heavy to be shoes. Finally it was time to open my present. It was in fact a shoebox - filled with a bunch of junk - including his funky old tennis shoes. I still didn't really know what was going on, but I played along like I was super interested in the junk. Or maybe I was hunting around in the box for the "real" present. Then he tells me to stop and put the box down. I look up and he is on one knee next to the couch, ring in hand, "will you marry me?"

The pictures in this post are our engagement pictures taken by our friend, Amy, at my inlaws' farm. She has since started her own photography business. You can check out more of her pictures at Look Closely Photography. You can see pictures from our wedding in this anniversary post. Amy wasn't doing wedding pictures yet. I didn't love our photographer so he doesn't get a shout out (but I won't publicly bash him either).

I love hearing people's love stories...please leave a comment with your proposal story.








Sincerely, Paula

14 comments:

  1. I love your proposal story so so much! And your engagement pictures!!! Our engagement story is less than glamorous though. About 4 years of dating (after my first marriage, I wanted to make DANG sure before marrying..), I just casually said one day, hey lets get married. Chris said, "sure!" and then about 3 months later we did! :) It's now been 10 years later and some change!

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    1. Hey, it's not about the proposal it's about the marriage. Go you two!

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    2. I completely agree with Meg. The old shoes and junk decoy box wasn't exactly glamorous either, but it worked :)

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  2. AW, I love your proposal story. that is awesome!

    Mine is funny because I have the actualy proposal and then the one I ruined hahaha. Hubs and I flew out to Colorado for a vacation. We were at a hot springs resort for one of the nights. It was lovely. We were in this awesome natural spring next to a river and he got down on his knee and proposed. EEEEEEE! He just likes to say he proposed in his bathing suit which is not something he planned on doing.

    You see, Hubs had no idea I was deathly afraid of heights. So a few days before we went to the hot springs we were in Rocky Mountain National Park and he had these plans to drive us up to this spot to watch the sunset (and then he would propose). Unfortunately, the road to this spot was super scary, like a windy, twisty mountain roud, was windy, etc. And I started crying halfway there and begging him to turn the car around. Yep. I ruined his proposal plan. HA!

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    1. That is too funny....the best laid plans! And I have to get myself to Colorado one of these days...looks so beautiful!

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  3. I love this! Proposal stories are so fun! And your engagement pictures are adorable :)

    Fella and I have a really simple story. He propsed one lazy weekend morning while we were just laxing around in bed. It perfectly fit us though. He had been crazy nervous for a few months though and originally was going to wait until we were in Florida for Christmas to ask my parent's permission. Good thing he didn't because my parents would have found that strange! It's not really a thing in Estonian culture.

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    1. Aww..thanks...nothing says romance like posing on a propane tank...thankfully there are no pics of me gracefully climbing and my husband shoving my hiney up there :) Yeah, that might have been a little awkward - at first I thought you were going to say it is a good thing he didn't because they would have said no...that would be even more awkward.

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  4. What gorgeous pictures and a wonderful story! You too look so much in love! Eric and I don't have a fancy proposal story, we just talked about getting married once he moved from California to Oregon. I picked out a couple of rings online and sent him the links, he picked one and had it shipped to my house with the intent to propose on his next visit at Christmastime. The day he flew in was just shenanigans (my car broke down at the bank drive thru when I was braless and in my pajamas, his flight got cancelled when he made it to Seattle so he drove down from Seattle with 3 strangers just to get to Portland). Anyway, we finally made it to the park and he proposed. ;)

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    1. That is a great story!! Did you know which ring he chose?

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    2. It's been so long, but yeah I think I knew. I stipulated that I wanted a peridot stone and not a diamond because my beloved grandmother's birthday was in August, my parent's anniversary was in August and Eric and I started dating in an August. Just seemed right!

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  5. I love your story! You two look so cute in those pics. You both look so svelte now... time for some more pics? :)

    My story is a bit embarrassing. I had been on a hiking kick, and we had a spot we loved to go to for a hike every so often. Unbeknownst to him, I had made a commitment to myself (as a motivator) that I would not go all the way to the top again until I could run all the way to the top, the way the people I admired on the trail did. Unbeknownst to me, he had decided to propose at the top on our next hike.

    Long story short, the morning of the proposal we were on the trail and I was maneuvering us toward the path that goes around the mountain, rather than all the way up. He indicated that he wanted to go to the top. I said I really didn't want to, but felt silly explaining my reasoning, so I think I said something lame like, "Nah, I think I'd rather not." He was scrambling in his head for a plan B... We started toward the trail to go around and I finally said, "You know, if you really, really want to go to the top, I'll do it," and he replied, "I really, really want to go to the top." I should have known something was up, because he never pushes for something if I'm not feeling it. At any rate, we got to the top, he proposed with the beautiful ring and a mischievous smile I'll never forget. I was overjoyed, and of course incredibly embarrassed that our story would involve me trying to get out of hiking to the top!

    To add to the bit of embarrassment I feel when recounting this story, I was so surprised and happy, that I was shaking a bit, and I literally fell twice on the way down, which cracked us both up. It was a great day. Now I always hike to the top if I'm there. :)

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    1. That is a great story!! I love that the "imperfections" make the stories more perfectly memorable :)

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