The Proposal pt. 2

I will try my very best to write this story without being painfully repetitive, or outrageously mushy.

Before becoming engaged, Matt and I had been dating for just over five and a half years, and I know that I can speak for both of us in saying that we’d known from the start that we wanted to be together forever. I can’t recall when we first talked about marriage, but I’m pretty sure it was within our first year together.  Our plan had always been that when we had both found the jobs that we wanted, and were able to afford a place to live together, and pay all of our bills, that that would be the time.

The last piece of that very difficult and confusing puzzle fell into place on August 24^th 2010, when I got my teaching job.  Matt and I were so excited to be doing what we loved, successfully making a home in our little apartment, paying bills, saving some money, and doing it all as a team.  I have to admit, that after the initial shock and excitement of actually getting a job had (very slightly) worn off, I began considering the fact that Matt might actually propose to me. All of our initial goals had been reached, and the criteria had been met. We were two self-sufficient adults, very much in love, and not at all afraid of commitment. So, ever since September the thought of becoming engaged had been rattling around in my head. I tried to keep my eyes open for anything suspicious, I dropped hints, and at times I actually said “are we ever going to get married?!?!” Matt played it completely cool the entire time. He made jokes about us getting married in 10, 15, 20, 30 years. He had our friends laughing and going on with his bit. It was all in true Matt fashion, and I didn’t mind it one bit. I never got scared or began to think that he didn’t want to marry me. I just knew that he wanted it to be a surprise, and that he wanted to do it in his own way. At times I even brought up the idea of just deciding to get married. Having a conversation and making it official. No big proposal, no ring, just two people deciding to make their commitment to each other public, with a wedding. Matt was not up for this. He wanted to do all of the things that you’ll read about in his proposal story, and I have to admit that it all makes me feel very special and very loved.

I’ve never really been into birthdays. I like doing special things for other people on their birthdays, but when mine rolls around I’ve always just enjoyed doing regular things with the people that I love. This year was no different. Matt and I both had busy workdays, and had made a plan to make blueberry pancakes for dinner, watch Freaks and Geeks, and call it a night. I had a really great day from start to finish. I shared a nice breakfast at school, had fun with my students, went to an end of the year dinner with my awesome coworkers, (where one of our topics of conversation happened to be weddings?!? So weird) and received wonderful birthday wishes from friends and family all day. As I drove home I remember thinking about how lucky I am to be living such an amazing life.

When I got home Matt was standing in the kitchen waiting for me. We went about our normal post work routine of talking and laughing about the details of our days. After about a half an hour, Matt announced that it was time for presents, and I took a seat on the futon (we had been planning on buying a new couch this summer to replace this old gross futon, but now I’m not sure that I can part with it). Matt presented me with the world’s coolest Parks and Rec poster, and a beautiful new Jcrew bag. As he was giving me these gifts, I began to notice that he was not only sitting in the strangest most contorted fashion, but that his voice was shaking. Why is he nervous to give me these gifts that he knows I’ll love? Is he sick? Does he have a sore throat? Is he upset with me about something? I was so confused. I can honestly say that Matt is the most confident person I know, and he certainly never gets nervous around me. Before I had much time to think about it, or to ask him what was wrong, I made my way to the last gift bag. I pulled the single Hershey’s kiss (see his story for the secret meaning) out of the bag. Within the span of about two seconds I had a thought process that went something like “aw that’s so sweet…he’s reminding me of how we first started dating…it’s not our anniversary…it’s my birthday… you give a girl a piece of candy and… OHHHHHHHH DEAR GOD.” I’ll never forget the look in his face, and the way his voice sounded as he got down on one knee in the living room of the home we built together, and asked me to marry him. It was perfect. As soon as I saw the ring I knew that it was my great grandmother’s, so I knew that Matt had talked to my parents. Two factors that made things even more special. What followed was the most bizarre and surreal emotional experience of my life. It started with a burst of happy tears that ended up lasting for a very long time. Next I began to feel like I was actually glowing, as if being this happy might actually result in light pouring out of my skin. After that I felt so full of excitement and energy that I could have probably ran a marathon. Finally, I felt hungry. We ate those blueberry pancakes, watched Freaks and Geeks, and attempted to actually fall asleep. It was definitely the best day of my young life. In the week and a half that has followed, we have felt so much love and support from our friends and family. It feels so good to know that the people we love are happy about this step we are taking, and are excited to come along for the ride. Although I am thrilled to be going through this entire process with Matt, I know that the promise to share our lives together was made long ago, and commitments of the heart are the most important kind.

The Proposal pt. 1

"When we get married, can we start a blog to document everything?" she asked me. "I don't know.... will blogs still be relevant in ten years?"
This was our little joke. She would playfully propose the idea of engagement and marriage and I would push it away by suggesting it would happen much, MUCH later. But the truth was that I wanted it to happen just as much as she did, and there were just a few obstacles in my way of speeding that up and making it actually happen. Mainly, obtaining a ring...

Because of my lack of knowledge of pretty much anything wedding related, I asked my cousin, best friend, and future best man, Ian, to help me with this task. Due to our conflicting schedules, there was one day in our upcoming weeks that was going to work for us. Great news. However, now I was faced with one of the one of the most nerve wracking things I could imagine. Calling her parents, and asking for permission...

Is this old fashioned? It might be. But you only get married once, and I didn't want to miss out on any of the classic wedding or engagement stuff. Plus, I really do feel like it is the polite, thoughtful and respectful thing to do. I''ll include that in my book of wedding memoirs for sure. So, after an afternoon of being pumped up by my dear friend Mike via instant messenger as we ended our day at work, he convinced me to call her parents. I thought about doing it on the ride home, but the closer I got to dialing, the more nervous I got and the more I convinced myself it would be better once I was actually home. Kirby was working late at school, so I had some free time, but it had to be that day, every other day she is home before I am. I poured a medium sized glass of water and drank the whole thing to regain some function to my closing throat. I psyched myself up as best as possible and nervously called her Dad's cell phone. I had not a trace of fear they would say anything but an excited "yes," but that meant nothing, I was still terrified. Several rings go by, and eventually it goes to voice mail. Can you ask to marry a man's daughter via voicemail? Thank god I answered that question quickly and correctly and I hung up in time. But now I had lost my adrenaline, and was nervously wondering what to do. As I paced my cell phone starts ringing and it was her Dad. Great, now I have to answer and I'm completely unprepared. It was the biggest "Here goes nothing moment" of my life...

"Matt Who?" Potentially the worst possible way to start this conversation, but here I was. Trying to explain my identity to my girlfriend's father who I've known well for over 5 years. As it turned out, because I called him on his work phone, he was mistaking me for a Matt he worked with...which there were none. Scott, if you're reading this, I understand and I do not feel bad about this at all. Really! After we got past that, I asked him what I had called to ask in what had to have been a very uncool and very skittish voice, to which I heard him say to his wife "Kim, Matt's asking if he can marry Kirby," and then I heard a yell, and knew it was all okay...

Turning out to be my luckiest moment of this process, Kim had told me she had a ring she would like to give me to give to Kirby. It was her grandmother's, and a ring Kirby had admired since she was a child. Perfect wouldn't even be a just enough word. We were planning to go visit both of our parents that next weekend, and she told me she would have it ready for me. When that day came, she casually slipped it into my pocket as I entered her house. The ring began day one of a very high-strung two weeks in my possession...

I hid the ring in the back of my sock drawer. Another classic engagement cliche I was not about to miss out on. I checked on it every day before I left for work to make sure it was still there and to take a look at the soon to be symbol of my love and commitment to Kirby. It was exciting and scary that something so small held so much meaning...and was just sitting (albeit in a box) next to my old dress socks. The sooner I could get this out off there and onto her finger, the better. So I began to wrack my mind for the right way to propose. This was something that I would be asked about forever, and naturally, I wanted to make it special. I also wanted it to be something shocking, and something to catch her off guard. I wasn't going to surprise her in the fact that I was asking her to marry me, but how I did it, and when I did it were going to be what surprised her. It seemed to be just in the nick of time that I realized how I wanted to do it...

Before we started dating, I had gone to babysit her cousins with her. While talking to the youngest, Logan, who had to have been in preschool at the time, he told us that he had a lot of girlfriends in school. "Well, how do you get a girlfriend?" Kirby asked. "You give them a piece of candy and ask them to marry you." Of course, right? One night shortly after that, I gave her a Hershey's kiss and asked her to marry me, and that's how she became my girlfriend. Thanks Logan, you have no idea how insightful you really were...

(Screen cap of what I tweeted minutes before the proposal.)

June 16, 2011, Kirby turns 24. I sit next to her on our couch. I know she can tell I'm nervous, and she's wondering why I'm nervous to give her her birthday presents. I sort of wonder the same thing. She opens two gifts that result in standard gift giving and receiving procedures. I try to explain the gifts with a mouth made of actual cotton. She reaches for the third bag, a gift bag doubling the others in size. She digs through the wrapping paper, which I have to stop her and tell her the gift is inside the wrapping paper. She unfolds the first clump to reveal a single Hershey's kiss. I begin to see her mind crank the gears and piece together what's happening. In the least smooth, least cool possible way, I take the ring box from my pocket and make my way down to one knee. I open the box, reveal the ring and am able to get the words "Kirby...will you marry me?" out of my mouth just in time before my emotions get the best of me. Hers had already gotten to her, and at this point it was just a lot of crying. It should come as no plot twist that she said yes, and with that I successfully pulled off a proposal. Guys, don't worry about being cool doing this, if you're doing it right, you'll barely be able to do it.

And that brings us to where we are now. A young, very newly engaged couple, incredibly excited to plan our wedding, but even more excited to spend our lives together...

The First

Hello friends, family, and strangers. Matt and I have decided to start, and hopefully keep up with, a blog dedicated to our life together. More specifically, to document the ideas, stress, stories, and adventures that come about when two young people (us) become engaged, plan a wedding, and ultimately get married. Being engaged for 11 very short days, we are already filled with excitement about the entire process. We're sharing ideas, making a guest list, reading blogs, researching venues, and quickly realizing that this wedding is going to come and go faster than we can imagine. This being the case, we wanted to make something that we could look back on when all of this craziness is over, and we are happily married (which is what we are most excited for).

Below you will find a picture of Matt and me shortly after we started dating in 2005. Under that are two photos of us from just a few days ago.