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...