My Story

Tell about your engagement? How was the question asked, or was the question asked? How long was it between the proposal and the wedding?

The Proposal
In November 2006 The King and I had been dating for nearly 7 years, living together for 2 years, and I was beginning to despair of him ever asking me to marry him.
It was the week before Thanksgiving and I was having my nails done by my friend, Christy, at her house, for the upcoming holiday. For some reason the topic of discussion turned to The King and “When is he going to propose?” This was a question frequently asked by many of our friends and family.
“I have no idea. I’m beginning to doubt he ever will.” I responded to her.
“How do you feel about that? Would you stay together even if you didn’t ever get married?”
“Of course I would, I love him. Marriage doesn’t change that. But truth be told I WANT to get married, I want THAT commitment.”
As the evening progressed our discussions turned to other things and soon enough my nails were done and I got ready to head home. Her parting words to me were “Call me if he proposes!” And we both laughed.
I drove the 15 minutes home with marriage and a proposal far from my mind. My thoughts drifted towards what I was going to make for dinner that night. I arrived home to find The King already home and in taking a shower. I went in to let him know I was home.
“How’d your nail appointment go?” he asked from behind the shower curtain when I entered the bathroom.
“Good.”
“Let me see your nails.” He said peeking around the shower curtain.
I went over and put my hand up and he commented on the “ordinary” color I had chosen. In those days I was always trying out of the ordinary colors; blue, silver, gold, purple ect. That night I had chosen a soft pink.
I left the bathroom and returned to the kitchen to start dinner. I had decided on spaghetti. I started the water to boil and to get everything else out I needed when I heard The King call me from the other room.
“What?” I called to him.
“Come here.” He called back.
I returned to our bedroom to find him standing in the middle of the room wearing nothing but a burgundy towel wrapped around his waist and holding a red fake rose out to me. I laughed and took the rose. As soon as I had the rose I realized the top of it opened. So I opened it. Shining back at me was a platinum ring with a 3carat sapphire and 6 diamonds!
“WHAT is THAT!!??” I yelped. I was shocked I even had a voice at all.
“Will you marry me?” he asked laughing.
“Oh my God! Are you serious?! YES!!!!” I was crying uncontrollably and laughing all at the same time. I couldn’t believe he was truly asking me.
“Yes I’m serious!” he said as he took my hand to place the ring on my finger. “You opened the rose so fast I didn’t have time to get on one knee!” he laughed.
“I saw it opened.” I laughed. I was so happy I was shaking.
He lead me by the hand into the bathroom and he sat on the counter. He proceeded to tell me he had had the ring custom made and had picked it up from the jeweler early that day. His plan was to wait until Thanksgiving and propose in front of his entire family at Thanksgiving Dinner the following week, which was also our 7 year dating anniversary.
“I couldn’t wait.” He said a little sheepishly.
We embraced in the bathroom for quite awhile. He told me all about the jeweler coming to one of his landscape job sites with various stones and hand picking the sapphire, my favorite stone. He told me about working with the jeweler in planning the design. All of this had started 2 months prior. I was speechless!
My first phone call was to my friend Christy. I thought for sure she was in on the entire thing.
“NO!! I had no idea!!” she exclaimed when I accused her of “keeping a secret.” We laughed about how fate works and how bizarre it was that we had just talked about him not proposing.
Later that evening we drove to his parents house and much to my surprise, his mother new EVERYTHING. Although, she was surprised to find he had proposed before the planned date! She was laughing and was just a giddy as I was.
The following week, on Thanksgiving, his mom presented me with a gift. I was shocked to find it contained a cake topper I had fallen in love with several months earlier when she and I had visited Chinatown in San Francisco.
“You have no idea how hard it was for me to find that little shop again!” She laughed. “I knew I had to get it for you!”
It was a dress and tuxedo on headless garment racks. It was made of pink pearl with diamonds inset. I LOVED it the instant I had seen it in that little shop window. It was different and unusually.
Earlier in the week, after telling my mom and stepdad of our engagement, my stepdad had asked that we marry in his family church. I was delighted. It was a beautiful church. Now we had to decided on a date. I had always wanted to get married in September. My Dad had died in September so it was a month of sadness for me. I wanted something happy and joyful to take that sadness from it.
That Thanksgiving night at The King’s parent’s house, we discussed a date. Because I was insisting on a September wedding, which is also hunting season; the King, his Dad and his brother are all avid hunters, the date needed to be in between the closing of one hunting zone and the opening of another. Ultimately our date was based on the availability of the church, just by chance it didn’t interfere with hunting season.
The date was set for September 6, 1997. Just 9 months away!