Our story...***really long***

[DRB]

So I just realized that I've been on this forum for well over a year now and I've never posted our engagement story! It was a bit of a touchy situation to begin with and that's why I think that I held off on it, but I'm over being sensitive about it, lol. It's also a bit of a saga (my poor FH, lol) so I've posted the (REALLY LONG) story from both of our perspectives off of our wedsite. You need to get through the background info first though...

 

To start (this part isn't on the wedsite, lol), FH and I met through friends when I was in my first year of university and he was in his last year of high school. It wasn't exactly love at first sight, long story but I had put on some weight in my last year of high school (~30 pounds from WAY too much partying) and he wasn't physically attracted to me. My best guy friend who is also his best friend told him to go for it when I asked him out. It sounds pretty brutal (and used to bother me) but he always says that at least I know that he fell in love with me for who I am. He was also really supportive once we were together and helped me get healthy again through working out together. Anyways, all that aside once we started dating we became inseparable (we've seen each other every day except for a total of 2 weeks) and we will have been together for 9 years in January.

 

Onto the next part, this also isn't on the wedsite. All of our friends were starting to get engaged around us and I was starting to get a little impatient. We had been together the longest out of everyone, owned a condo together, dog, were common-law etc. When our best friends got engaged (they had been together for about 4 years and are younger than us) I was starting to feel hurt and I was really down on myself, little did I know he was planning something all along...

 

The odyssey of the ring (his perspective from our wedsite)

 

"It all started in early June 2008, Mel and I had been together for about 7-1/2 years and the time had come to ensure that I spend the rest of my long life with Mel. I had been planning this is my mind for some time and I knew that I couldn't walk into a jewelry store and just pick a ring because nothing caught my eye despite looking at numerous store and styles for weeks.

 

So I walked into a local jeweler that had a very good reputation and I had shopped at before and I started talking to one of the sales associates. We talked for some time about all the different styles and qualities of rings that were available and again I just couldn't find anything that was special enough for Mel. So I decided on having a ring custom made. We drew up designs and concepts taking different elements from other rings that were appealing on their own but not as a whole. As I'd been browsing earlier on I had seen a particular style of ring where the diamond is held in a tension setting. The tension setting makes it look like the diamond is floating as there are only two points of contact on either side of the rock. I know then that this was something that I wanted to incorporate this design element into the ring. Unfortunately a tension setting is only possible in a platinum ring because of the metallic properties. I would have loved to use platinum but the cost was just prohibitive but I could do the next best thing, I decided to use 18kt white gold and have it alloyed with palladium, not only would this help strengthen the ring it would also help keep the color white over time.

 

By late June we had a beautiful ring designed. Unfortunately we couldn't go ahead with the design until a diamond had been chosen. So they ordered some diamonds in at the approximate size that I had chosen. July 10th the diamonds came in and they were all beautiful and I had to choose from about 8 diamonds. Let me say this is no easy task, they were all of good quality and the differences were minor but I managed to choose one that would be brilliant and large enough to be showcased in this style of ring. So the ring was designed and the diamond had been chosen. It was time to send the design and diamond off to the jewelry maker so they could produce a wax mould.

 

The initial wax mould for the ring came in on July 24. The mould was exactly how I had pictured it and within 5 minutes of sitting down with the jeweler the mould was approved and ready to be sent back to be made. Knowing that I already had a date of August 21 set for the proposal they agreed to put a rush on it so that the ring would be ready. Getting a ring in this timeline is just about as tight as it can be but I was assured that it would be done.

 

So, a few weeks go by and I haven't heard anything about the status of the ring and I'm starting to get worried. I had chosen to propose after Mel's Master's defense, I know that this is corny but figured that this would only make the day better. So it's now August 18th and I still haven't heard anything from the jeweler so I decide to call them and find out what was going on. I call them and ask about my file and what's happening, the associate that I talk to pulls the file and says that there is nothing there...this is weird, but she says that she'll have the Manager call me back. Ten minutes later the Manager calls me and says

 

"Don't you know?"

 

"Know what?" I said

 

"The parcel was lost in shipment to the jewelry maker. Didn't you get a call explaining what was happening?"

 

"What do yo mean it was lost? I was planning on proposing in 3 days! And no I didn't get a call! What am I supposed to do now!"

 

Suffice to say the ring would not be coming in within the next few days. I was told that the process would have to start all over again! They were very apologetic about the whole debacle. I guess the associate that I had been dealing with at the jewelry store had accidentally forgotten or mistakenly missed calling me about the missing parcel.

 

So there I am devastated that all of my well laid plans had gone awry, Mel's successful defense of her Master's comes and goes with only me knowing that a very special event had been missed.

 

So the 21st of August has passed, Mel's defense, and I haven't proposed. I don't have a ring and I still don't know what is happening. I guess in a way it was good that I didn't propose after Mel's defense I think that she was kind of expecting it that day! Still this didn't help my situation!

 

I get a call four days later that a new mould and diamond have come in and that I will have to go and approve them at the jeweler. To my surprise the diamond has been upgraded and the size has increased by a couple of points. That's all well and good but I wanted to know how long it would take before I got my ring...my patience was starting to wear thin. I'm told that they will put it as their highest priority and that I will have my ring in 10 days; they told the jewelry maker to drop everything else that he is working on for them and to focus on this ring.

 

This is excellent news, I only have to wait two more weeks and in that time I can come up with an even better proposal that will knock Mel's socks off! The new “planned†delivery date is Friday the 5th of September. Mel and I had been talking for a while about going on a picnic down by the Rideau Canal but we just never got around to going, so I decided to make this my new plan. After I get the ring on the 5th the next day Mel and I would go for a picnic and I would sneak the ring in at some point during the lunch...how Romantic...Mel's a sucker for romantic things :-)

 

September 4th I call the jewelry store and check up on the status of the ring since it is supposed to arrive the next day. Little did I know that all my plans would go down the tube again! It turns out that the jewelry maker in Montreal had been flooded because a water main had broken a couple of days before and the firemen would not allow anyone into the building, and they didn't know when he would be able to ship the ring out. Well this just sucks. It's almost as if there is some force working against me...but that's OK, I'm persistent and Mel is definitely worth it. The only thing to do now is to scrap the picnic idea and move on to plan #3.

 

Just on a side note, September 6th ended up being a beautiful day...it was the really last nice day of the summer before all the cold gloomy weather started to move in for fall/winter.

 

As “fortune†would have it the ring came in the following week on Tuesday September 9th, now I just had to figure out what to do with it!"

 

The Proposal (still his perspective)

 

"So now I have a ring and no freaking clue about about what to do with it...I'm now drawing blanks on something original to do. By now the weather has turned cold a picnic is out so all I'm really left with is to go for a nice dinner and do it there...I know how traditional and predictable. I was so terribly disappointed in myself for not being able to come up with anything more original and meaningful than this but I think I had just been beaten down so much with this whole process.

 

So that Friday I have a 100th anniversary celebration for my work, and we are there with our best friends (Best Man and Maid of Honour) having a few drinks when Mel says that she is going to go to the gym the next morning around 9am; suddenly the alarm bells go off in my head and I have a new idea...it would take a little bit of luck and some good timing to pull off but I think it will be possible. So continuing on with the evening I let our friends in on the deal that I'm going to propose the next morning after Mel comes home from the gym...not even thinking that she would be all sweaty after.

 

The following morning rolls around and I'm up early, almost unnaturally early for a weekend (I think around 6:30am)...I'm really starting to get nervous about this, but I try and hide it as best I can. So I putter around trying not to make any noise like I usually do on weekends when I'm up before Mel. I take the puppy out and try and distract myself with Saturday morning cartoons (yes I'm still a kid at heart). Well, 9am rolls around and Mel isn't up, but that's OK. 10am comes and goes and FINALLY 10:30am Mel wakes up, great she's up and she's going to the gym...or not. Mel gets up has a cup of coffee with me and then decides that she will go back to sleep...crap, this day isn't working out as planned. So as my stomach slowly knots itself up as I'm worried that Mel won't end up going to the gym I putter around some more trying to make it look like a regular Saturday morning.

 

Finally a little bit after noon Mel gets up with a sheepish look on her face, the same one she gets when she sleeps a little bit too long. Great!!! Mel is finally up which means that she is going to the gym...maybe not. Mel decides to putter around for a little while having some coffee, watching TV, surfing the web, meanwhile I'm about to have an aneurysm thinking that Mel won't be going to the gym. Two hours after getting up Mel finally starts moving and tells me that she is going and that she will be about two hours. As I'm saying goodbye to her at the door my best friend calls me and asks me how it went because he and his fiance knew that I was planning on popping the question in the morning, so I had to quickly end the phone call and make up some reason why he called.

 

Mel is finally gone and I go into hyper drive. Our friends were gracious enough to ask me if I needed any help...which I took them up on as soon as Mel left. I raced to the local mall and bought 3 boxes of rose petals, raced to meet our friends at the Flower shop where I bought 4 dozen regular roses and another dozen of the long stem variety. Having all the necessary goods we rushed back to the condo and started setting everything up. First the condo had to be cleaned a little bit...dishes put away, counters and floors cleaned, bed made, etc... The roses were trimmed, two of the four dozen were put in vases (one in the kitchen and another in the bedroom), the other two dozen were placed on the floor leading to the bedroom and flower petals strewn about all over the place. All this done our friends left and bid me good luck.

 

I quickly changed into a suit and waited in the bedroom with the long stem roses. I checked everything and double and triple checked again. I started thinking about everything that I would say when Mel got home and I thought I had it down. So I waited and waited and waited...probably for about 45 minutes before I heard the keys in the door. At that moment my heart started racing and then Mel walked into the bedroom in her gym clothes and she couldn't have looked more beautiful. I believe that I tried to say something meaningful but it started to get all jumbled as it came out so I dropped to one knee and asked Mel to be my wife. Obviously she said yes and here we are. Later that night we went for dinner and celebrated."

 

The Proposal (my perspective)

 

"Raine asked me to marry him on September 13, 2009. The proposal was perfect, although he definitely had a bit of a rough time leading up to it!

 

On the night before the proposal I told him that I was going to go to the gym the next morning. I figured that I would get up around 9am (a normal time for me to get up on the weekend) and go to the gym at around 10am. Well for some reason I slept until 10:30am, got up for a few minutes, said good morning to Raine (who had gotten up long before me) and the dog and then I proceeded to go right back to bed until 12:30pm. Little did I know that Raine had a plan for that day and was starting to sweat a little....

 

Finally at 12:30pm I got up, got dressed, and then proceeded to have a couple of cups of coffee while I watched bad Saturday afternoon TV for the next 2 hours. Needless to say Raine was getting stressed. I was still oblivious to everything. Much to Raine’s relief at 2:30pm I finally decided that I should get moving so I left for the gym and told Raine that I would be home at around 4:30pm.

 

After the gym I was walking up to the front door of our condo and I noticed under the door that our hallway light was on. I could smell something that smelled really clean so I figured that Raine had washed the floors. I opened the door and was completely blown away! Yes, the floors had been washed, but they were also covered in rose petals and lined with roses. There were a dozen roses on the kitchen counter and more rose petals everywhere. I immediately started to bawl. A pathway of roses and rose petals lead to the bedroom where the door was open just a crack.

 

When I opened the door to the bedroom I saw that it was covered in more rose petals, there were candles everywhere, and another dozen roses on the dresser. It was incredible! Best of all Raine was standing there waiting for me in a suit holding a dozen long stem roses. He then proceeded to try to give a little speech (but was very sweet and emotional) and then got down on one knee with the ring and asked me to marry him!!! The ring was the most beautiful ring that I had ever seen and of course I said yes!!!! It was the best day of my life and I still smile when I think of it!"

 

Thanks for reading

 

Here are some pics:

 

 

 

 

[JT3]

Great Proposal... and CONGRATS>..

[LadyTrunck]

WOW! That is a great story!! Congrats!

[Rainfall]

Wow long story indeed but worth the read! Congrats!!

[Island Bride]

aw! at least he hung in there thru all the trials and tribulations! i think i would of gave up and said maybe this isnt meant to happen!!

[Cindy*]

So glad to hear it all worked out. Congrats! Btw, I just noticed today is your wedding day, I hope it's amazing!

[blckrevpower]

congrats!!!!

[mekanabr]

Congrats. that was such a sweet story. I hope you're wedding was everything you could have imagined I can't wait to read your review bc I'm looking into the Majestic for my wedding!

[Rora57]

Great Story! Sooo sweet and thoughtful. Congrats!

[Snickers]

Congrats. That was a super story and love the pics with the petals!