Tuesday, April 03, 2007

I'll tell you mine, you tell me yours

On the weekend, while indulging in our first pedicure of the year — I know I'm not the only one at this blog eagerly anticipating open-toe season — a friend and I shared engagement stories. It all started as a dramatization of how my hubby can't keep a secret. Here's my story:
Soon after returning from (me) backpacking in Europe and (he) finishing a work-study exchange program in France/Hungary, he started researching diamonds and specifically carats. We looked at a few rings but didn't dare venture into a jeweller's shop. (The usual state of affairs when the idea is brewing.) Then one day while shopping he flitted off, leaving my friend and I busy in the cosmetics department of a Toronto department store. He appeared several minutes later, wild-eyed and excited. He sent my friend away (who dutifully took in events from a nearby column), dragged me to the slipper section (it being the first area of the store affording a modicum of privacy), and proposed right then and there (my friend grinning ear-to-ear all the while).
At dinner that same night (as the pedicure, that is, not the engagement — grant me some taste!) — it was my pedicure friend's birthday, you see — I took a poll. Wonder of wonder, our story proved the most romantic. Here are the results:
  • One couple (the birthday girl and her beau) became engaged over the telephone, months before he, who was then in the army, was due to be stationed in another province. She said to him, "Well, should we get married or what?" He said, "Sure, why not?"
  • The second couple became engaged over dinner in a fancy restaurant, but only after she gave him the order. (She's Italian, so I'm not kidding: It was an order.)
  • The most recently married couple's engagement came to a head when she said, "Come on already, I know you've been to see your uncle the diamond merchant, but that was weeks ago. Get on with it. If I have to face my girl friends yet again without a ring, it's over!" He dropped to one knee at once (metaphorically speaking, of course).
What about you? Care to share your engagement story (or let's-move-in-together/share-our-life-together tale)?

Labels:

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

We had been dating a short while (read a month?) when I got the Invitation, the "would you like ot spend the weekend with me," Invitation. (What can I say, I move vvveerrryyy slow).

So, it was supposed to be a weekend, but I never left. Seriously. I tell people I was the world's house guest. Invited for two days, stayed for life.

As for the proposal (which came that summer), my girlfriend and I had our weekly dinner date. Afterwards, I wanted to go home, but she said she wanted to drive around, look at houses. So we did.

When I got home, I walked in the door, where a pink, yellow, and red rose petals made a trail from the door to the couch. Honest to God, I can't even remember the music playing because I'd already started crying.

He waited by the chair. After I sat down, he got on one knee, gave an eloquant speech about love (which I was in no shape to even hear), then proposed.

I may write romance, but when it comes to real life, he's got me beat. Always has, always will.

9:48 pm  
Blogger Annie said...

Mine made me wade into the English Channel on the pretext of telling me a secret, then refused to let me wade back out until I'd responded to his proposal. I should add it was March and the water was icy. Whilst I leapt up and down like Tigger on speed to keep warm, which he mistook for my unbounded joy, I gave in, said: 'Okay then. Can I get out now?' - and that was that. Oh yes, and he gave me the ring a few weeks later up a snowy mountain in the Peak District. Guess we started life as we meant to go on -on the move!

10:01 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

Suffice it to say we were far too young and far too drunk for the whole thing to be sensible. It was late at night at a wedding; I'd been a bridesmaid at another wedding and was all dressed up in rosebud pink silk, he'd started out the day looking heartbreaking in a morning suit. It all seemed terribly romantic-- but then many things do when you've drunk enough free champagne to fill a swimming pool.

1:12 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I shall have to keep those two motivational tools in mind: English Channel in March, and loads of champagne.

3:04 pm  
Blogger Eva said...

Hey, now, Brown, what about slippers?!

9:58 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Pardon my faux-pas.

I would have figured that the slippers go without saying.

Many a man's mind can be swayed by a well-turned ankle, shod in a sexy slipper...and if that doesn't work, I can always rip it off and beat him with it.

7:28 pm  
Blogger Eva said...

Rose petals are far more subtle and endearing.

2:41 pm  

Post a Comment

<< Home