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mel
April 13th, 2008, 04:38 PM
Thought I'd share. :)


The Proposal


The night of his birthday, March 26, we lay in bed and he told me that what he wanted most was for me to promise to spend the rest of my life with him.

It was not a proposal. It was a vow. And I was happy with it, knowing that I want nothing more than to be with him. He said he wanted all decisions to be made together and that we could start looking at rings and talking about what was to come.

A week ago Wednesday night, we were at the mall with the kids and he and Rowan split off and Cameron and I went the other way. Meeting back up, I walked past a jewelry counter and the sales guy says "hey, everything in this case is 50% off."

I stopped for a second and looked but then kept walking - but right then, Jeff came up so he looked, too. We found a nice 3 stone sapphire but we didn't bite. We did, however, talk about it at length that night and went home and did a lot of looking online. There, I came across a beautiful 1 ct. emerald cut sapphire solitaire.

Thursday morning, I woke up thinking about that ring and how I really felt it was the best choice for what I wanted. So at lunch, I sent Jeff a text saying "I've made a decision about the ring."

He messaged back, "what???"

Then my phone died.

I met Ronnie for lunch and sent him a message on her phone (I was going to Verizon after lunch to deal with my POS which has now been replaced) and somehow, it only got more confusing because he thought I was saying I had already gone and bought the ring. We worked it out that night when we got home and agreed to go ahead and get the ring... But then he was hedging. I just couldn't figure it out. First, he seemed like he was on board with all of it and then he started dodging, citing any number of things like that it was just too weird to buy an engagement ring online. But by the end of the night, he had reluctantly gone ahead and ordered the ring. I was suffering from a mixture of excitement and blinding confusion.

I had planned a birthday party for Jeff for April 5th at Portland City Grill for Saturday night at 7:30. I was amazed... Everyone showed up. That never happens with our group. We took up three tables since there were about 14 of us.

Much food and drink later, Ronnie asked me for some advice about a guy she was interested in and asked me to come to the bathroom with her so she could fill me in. We were in there for awhile and Angie came in to check on us. As I came back to our table, Jeff was standing there and he motioned to everyone to hold up their signs.

Perplexed, I looked around and saw everyone holding these large white signs that said "Say yes!" and "Please say yes!" and "Say yes already!" One said "RUN! It's not too late!" Another was all in Spanish.

Then I turned to him and he got down on his knee. It went something like "you've done everything to fuck this up over the last three weeks so just say yes."

I did, of course.

He'd been planning this for three months. So all of his reluctance was staged. In fact, there were so many white lies designed to throw me off the scent.

I was in shock. I still am, in fact. It just hit me about half an hour ago that I am getting married.

So... On that Thursday, the text message confusion was that he was at Gilt (a very cool, hip jewelry store on NW 23rd) buying a ring.

I have two engagement rings. First - the sapphire solitaire. Then the other is a 1940 diamond set in platinum and gold, surrounded by intricate filigree. I think I'll end up keeping the sapphire and trading in the antique ring for a band - but may end up having the sapphire put into an antique setting. Decisions, decisions.

We have tentatively set a date for October 25th and booked a location - but we aren't 100% sold on it yet. My dad's health is failing so we might move things up.

Either way... I am very happy and very, very lucky.

tahitisweetie
April 13th, 2008, 04:44 PM
Beautiful story. Congrats mel. Much happiness to you.

Gabby
April 13th, 2008, 05:48 PM
:clap:

Congratulations.

patchiepoopoo
April 13th, 2008, 05:59 PM
What a nice story.

Congratulations !

:lovey:

Virgo6
April 13th, 2008, 07:35 PM
Such a sweet story. Much happiness to you Mel and please keep us posted on all the plans as the time draws near.

Roo94
April 13th, 2008, 08:06 PM
Mel!

I haven't posted in a long time, but had to log in when I saw this! I am so happy for you - it sounds like you have found your perfect match. I remember reading back when you first met Jeff - I'm happy that this is a happily every after ending!

Roo

pocket
April 13th, 2008, 08:43 PM
Congratulations on finding the right guy....the right ring is secondary. You'll work it out. It's a great engagement story, Mel. I wish you both much happiness.

UkraineMom
April 13th, 2008, 09:38 PM
Cngrats!!!!!
I am so happy for you!

Irishlass
April 13th, 2008, 10:01 PM
Congratulations Mel, I wish you and Jeff much happiness. Thanks for sharing your engagement story with us.

AvecLion
April 13th, 2008, 11:53 PM
Awww, mel! :cheer:

Congrats to you both from me and my Jeff (aka J)

LeeLee
April 14th, 2008, 10:51 AM
What a great story. I'm happy for you.

LL

Fuel
April 14th, 2008, 12:24 PM
Congrats! :boogie:

Jordygirl
April 14th, 2008, 08:56 PM
Congratulations Mel. Blessings to you and Jeff both.

frawniemae
April 15th, 2008, 03:29 PM
Congrats!
Great story and I'm glad everything is working out for you two. Keep us posted!

spf15
April 18th, 2008, 12:19 PM
Congratulations. I hope the two of you are very happy together.

snip the elf
April 28th, 2008, 10:24 PM
Congratulations! I wish you both all the best!
October will be here before you know it!
Mine is in September and it feels like if I blink too much it will be tomorrow lol
:thumb::thumb:

mel
May 1st, 2008, 01:26 AM
Snip: Mine is now in September, too. The 6th, in fact. The location we wanted had a cancellation so we jumped on it.

So now it's a garden wedding, white tent, white roses, the whole nine. Yay me! :)

Congrats to you, by the way!

snip the elf
May 1st, 2008, 07:02 AM
Holy crap! so is mine!!! hahaha September 6th 2008
Would be nice to have ours outside but don't think it will be possible :(
we got a church...a SMALL church....don't know how we're goign to cram everyone in there but we will try.
Sounds like you're going to have a beautiful wedding!!
And thanks :)

Kramer
May 4th, 2008, 09:44 PM
mel :hug2: I am so happy for you!! Congratulations on your engagement! I hope your October brings you a beautiful beginning to your new life. I will be keeping your dad in my prayers!

mel
May 30th, 2008, 01:19 PM
Holy crap! so is mine!!! hahaha September 6th 2008

We had a dinner party recently and invited a couple that is also coincidentally getting married on 9/6. We didn't know until we started talking about our respective upcoming events. Just weird.

I'm just coasting along at this point. Everything is pretty much planned save for the cake - which we just can't seem to find a solution for. I can't eat wheat so if we do have a traditional cake, I won't be able to eat it. And Jeff just hates the idea of the traditional cake anyway and rolls his eyes at the whole "feeding each other" thing. We can't seem to make a firm decision at this point but we still have some time. We might just do something through the caterer at the hotel - like a dessert bar. We just so do not know what we are going to do yet.

He picked out my dress, by the way. Well, him and his best man. I had an appointment at a bridal boutique with my mom and Rowan (which was exhausting!) and then met up with the guys for dinner. They happened to see a dress in a window of a different store and nagged me to try it on. I did and it was a done deal. Just about all of the planning has been that easy. Except for the damn cake.

pocket
May 30th, 2008, 04:10 PM
How many guests will you have? If you have a small wedding, ice cream cakes are available...keeping them cold would present another problem, though.

Mouse9
May 31st, 2008, 06:44 PM
Ice cream cake sounds wonderful, as well as the dessert bar.

You could feed each other something else that you both like. A fried shrimp, a shish-ka-bob, anything that might mean a lot to you both. (I love shrimp and would choose it over cake any day.) Then take sips of champaine (to wash it down) with your arms hooked. It would still be romantic that way.

(Just an idea.)

Just another idea, though. Do you have allergies to nuts? I have heard of people using nuts, almonds, ? (acorns? in survival books) to make a type of a cake using very little, if any, flour.

(I think I will do a google search for "flourless cake recipes" and see what it says.)

Mouse9
May 31st, 2008, 06:53 PM
Wow! There's a whole bunch of them. You should look up some of these recipes.

I don't mean making a flourless cake for everyone else,(have a regular cake for them)... just have the cake you want to feed to each other be the flourless cake.

They have some chocolate ones that are totally flour free, though they use more eggs. Some are even nut free. Some use just egg whites, to cut the fat content, I think.

It does make me wonder what their textures would be like.

mel
June 4th, 2008, 01:53 PM
There are a couple of GF (gluten-free) bakeries in town which for me, I like then just fine. In fact, we're home here to Bob's Red Mill (http://www.bobsredmill.com) which produces a ton of GF flours and brownie, cake, and cookie mixes.

Jeff and I took a pasta class (it was a company gathering thing) and as a result, we went and bought a bunch of different GF flours and made pasta at home. It was a very interesting experiment, to put it kindly. Bob's Red Mill makes an all purpose GF flour that was by far the best to work with for making pasta. Normally, I eat rice pasta.

Jeff is a very good sport and has no problem eating GF foods but I don't think I'd subject wedding guests to a GF cake. It really does take some getting used to.

Pocket: We're expecting about 100 guests and I think the ice cream cake would be nearly impossible since we're having the wedding during what should be (keep your fingers crossed!) hot weather.

I found a place that makes these beautiful big dark and white chocolate dipped strawberries... So I'm thinking of that as a possibility, too.

crypto
June 13th, 2008, 12:10 PM
I should check in more often.

Congratulations Mel!!!! May you and Jeff experience a life time of happiness.

spf15
June 13th, 2008, 03:29 PM
If you decide you do want a semi-traditional cake but don't want to subject your guests to GF, you could always have the top layer done GF and do your traditional first slice from there, but then have the rest of the cake served from other layers.

pocket
June 13th, 2008, 04:44 PM
spf, what a great idea!