#2 The Proposal

This is not about the movie starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. No, this is the story of our proposal. After reading about it, you may want to check out the movie because our story is kind of just vanilla, and the movie is probably more entertaining. Vanilla's not bad. It is what it is.

J and I had discussed marriage before. I think? (I know, that's horrible that I don't remember.) But, we never "officially" made any direct comments about getting married, or engaged for that matter. No, not.at.all. So, the proposal was definitely a surprise.

Let me rewind a little bit. A few months before J proposed, a good friend of mine had recently gotten engaged. Her then-fiance, now-husband, had gone about it the traditional route via asking her father for her hand in marriage. Well, traditional is relative, but that's traditional for her culture as well as mine. I'm not really a traditional girl, but I did mention to J that asking for my hand in marriage would be important to my Dad. Well, that was that.

Fast forward to just before the proposal. J had purchased the ring with the help of a gemologist friend of his. I have to give him a lot of credit because, for one, J was completely broke and in school at the time. He spent every dime he had on this ring. We never discussed rings, but he picked out a beautiful one. (For the record, I would have NEVER expected nor wanted him to spend everything he had on the ring.) BTW, this was completely out of his element since he is so much more practical and cautious than this.

Fast forward again to the proposal. J decided to take me to the restaurant we had our first official date. We had dinner. Then dessert. Then he asked me to marry him. I was shocked at first because I totally was not expecting it. Of course, I said yes. We finished dessert and walked back to the car. I asked him if my parents knew and he said no. He said he consulted with his mother and she told him it was not necessary to ask my Dad. Hmmmm...

We went to my parents' house and we told them. It was quite a shocker. They were stunned. Don't get me wrong. My parents love J. They just were not expecting it at the time. Fast forward to the present. All's well in the land of parents and everything. Our friends and family are excited for us (my mom even announced our wedding date on her Facebook status, like, OMG!).

So, here we are, on our way to wedded bliss...or something like it. And that, my friends, is our proposal story. No, really, that's all there is to it. But, stay tuned because the wedding is definitely going to be greasy-butter-movie-popcorn worthy. We're talking a parade, an impersonator of sorts (more on that later), a New Orleans style jazz band, a multi-lingual DJ with a phenomenal international music collection, food galore, libations, samba dancers, a photo booth, a Chinese lion dance troupe, lots of dancing and more!

What flavor do you consider your proposal? Vanilla? Chocolate? Rocky Road (my favorite!)? Or something else?