Proposal Stories Part 2 (End)

One year ago today the Dude proposed to me.

I knew he was going to do it. For months I had been hounding him about when we were going to get engaged. He kept telling me to just give it time--he wanted it to happen, too, but he wanted it to be a surprise. I'm not very good with surprises. He finally caved in and told me that he was planning on proposing. So I, being the utter control freak that I am, told him that I wanted to pick out the ring. He was cool with that.

We went ring shopping, and I showed him what sorts of rings I liked (Ascher-cut or emerald-cut solitaire in a platinum tiffany setting) and we had fun trying on lots of different styles. One day, a little before Thanksgiving, the Dude came home from work over an hour late and said he had been at "the post office." I knew something was up but let it slide.

Cut to December 19, 2007. I was sitting in our dining room, taking my last final of the semester (a 24-hour take-home). The Dude and I were planning on opening Christmas presents together when he got home from work. I just knew that my ring was wrapped up in one of those little boxes underneath the tree. I half-assed my exam, turned it in, and waited for him to get home.

Later that night, the Dude took me out to dinner to a nice little neighborhood restaurant. I could barely eat I was so excited. When we got home, we exchanged gifts--3 for me and 3 for him. Sitting next to me on the couch, the Dude handed me the last package. After I tore off the wrappings and saw the black box inside, I had one moment of hesitation--was it really my ring? What if it wasn't, and I was totally wrong this whole time? But then, I opened the black box and inside it was a little blue box tied with white ribbon.

I opened it and saw the exact ring I had picked out. The Dude said, and I quote, "Will you marry me, baby?" It was that simple. And in it's own way, perfect.

Right after he popped the question--don't we look happy?

Here's the presents, right before we opened them. The ring is in the little package on the right-hand side behind the red one.

Was your real life proposal everything you thought it would be?

Dress Shopping

I guess my wedding dress search was pretty atypical: I didn't step foot in a bridal salon, I didn't suffer from a ton of indecision, and I spent under $500.

I decided pretty early on in the game that I wanted something vintage. It goes along with the whole "eco" theme I had in mind from the beginning--you know, there's no need to buy something new when something old will do. But also, I happened to stumble across this amazing online boutique based out of California that sells beautiful, one-of-a-kind vintage clothing and accessories, Posh Girl Vintage. They have a ton of dresses that either are or could be wedding dresses, and they also have a lot of other cute evening wear.

Right away I was drawn to these two tea-length numbers.
. . . but, alas, they were both sold already. I relentlessly trolled the website until one day, I stumbled upon this. (Don't click, Dude.) I was at my parents' house, visiting for Mother's Day, and I showed it to my mom. She loved it, so I ordered it right then and there. It made her really happy that she got to "go wedding dress shopping" with me.

I got the dress, and it fit perfectly, so that was that. Or was it?

Proposal Stories

Let me just preface this story by saying this is not how I got engaged.

I spent the summer of 2007 interning at a non-profit law firm in Chicago, 1200 miles from where I go to law school and from Austin, Texas where the Dude and I live. We had to spend seven weeks apart, the longest by far in our (at the time) 3+ year relationship. The midway point of the internship marked both my birthday and the Dude flying up to visit me for two nights. After a few days away from him, I couldn't wait for his visit.

Me and the Dude in Chicago

The day his flight got in, I left work early and took the train all the way to O'Hare (about an hour and a half trip!) to meet him. When we saw each other across the terminal, my heart kinda flip-flopped in my chest. We said hello, and then waited for his baggage. Instead of going all the way back to my apartment on the South Side, we headed straight to a place in Wicker Park that I had picked out for dinner with the Dude's luggage in tow. The restaurant was called Thyme Cafe, a little French restaurant in a 120-year old building located in the "historic epicenter of Bucktown" (or so my travel guide said). But we got to the address listed and, yeah, the building looked old, but there was no place called Thyme Cafe in sight.

Since we were already there, we decided to go ahead and try the restaurant that had taken the place of Thyme Cafe. We nestled into a cozy booth looking out onto the street. There was only one other couple in the restaurant, but it wasn't awkward. It was quiet and peaceful. The food and wine were excellent, and our waiter brought us two glasses of champagne (on the house!) with dessert. The Dude handed me my birthday presents, and I unwrapped them at the table: a Bill Bryson book and a green handmade journal. I was holding out hope until the wrappings came off of those gifts, but at this point the fantasy was over--I knew he didn't have a ring on him. This night is still up there on my most romantic nights ever, but it would've been that much more perfect if it had ended in us getting engaged.

Did you think your boyfriend was going to propose at a certain time and he didn't? Did you know the proposal was coming or did it catch you completely off guard?

Progress Made

So wedding planning has recently had to take a backseat to studying for final exams. As a third year law student, I have redefined studying as waiting until the week of finals and trying to cram in a semester's worth of work, hence the lack of time to do much else.

In between studying for our Constitutional Law final, a fellow law student/bride-to-be and I managed to bounce some wedding ideas off of each other. I figured out a few things, as well as realizing how many details I still have to work out over the next nine months. (Yep, my wedding is now one pregnancy-length unit of time away. Yikes.) Here's what I've come up with over the past week or so:

1. I have absolutely no clue how I am going to structure the reception/dinner/dancing/cocktails following the wedding ceremony. How do I get the maximum number of people mingling and out on the dance floor? Should I do cocktails immediately following the reception or just plunge straight into dinner? Should I have dancing go on all night or limit it to a specified period of time at the end? For some reason, this is all very overwhelming.

2. Thanks to the advice of another fellow law student (you know who you are), I decided to start taking prenatal vitamins to encourage my hair to grow faster for the wedding. It's a little past shoulder length now, and I want it to go down to about halfway down my back. I'm planning on wearing it long and flowy, like the woman in this pic. (Forgive the sexy pose, I just really liked her hair.) I'm hoping my mom doesn't stop by, see the vitamins, and come to the wrong conclusion.


3. Do I Ipod or do I DJ?

4. Does giving out favors to guests go against the whole idea of having a "green" wedding? If I don't give out favors, will guests feel shafted?

5. I found out I have a connection to someone getting married at the same venue as me and the Dude! This means we can exchange ideas and information!

6. Oh yeah, I found replacement shoes. They're not quite as stunning as the red ones, but
still . . . well, take a look for yourselves. (The gold ones.)

These bad boys are also from Victoria's Secret online. I took advantage of some Christmas sales to get a pretty good deal on them--I got free shipping and 20% off! VS is currently offering $10 off of any one item that you purchase online or over the phone--just go to their website and sign up for their email list and you can get offers like this! Here is the link.

I wonder if my recent stress over planning the wedding has to do with timing--it's still too far away to do a lot of things (like making the invitations, picking out the food and the flowers), but the date is inevitably creeping up on me. Is there a time when it all starts to feel like it's coming together?