The Engagement Story

About a month ago I promised that I would tell you the story of Eric and I getting engaged, since it happened before I had entered the wonderful world of blogging :) Since we got engaged 1 year ago tomorrow, I figured now was as good of a time as any. It's actually a VERY short story, except for all the background you need to "get it..."

Before we begin I have to be honest with you and say I am not big into "engagement stories." Sure, I always ask people about the story and I have heard some good ones, but to me I'd rather that someone have a kind, caring husband every day, than someone who can come up with some elaborate insanity for the day they get engaged. Just me. I told Eric if he asked me somewhere public I'd say no, which was obviously a lie but I know I would have been not into the random strangers clapping for me.

Eric and I have been together for almost 5 years now, and for at least a few years of that time I have known we would get married. I was not in a huge rush to get married, I wanted to eventually but I knew (still know) nothing about planning a wedding, so I didn't really want to deal with it first of my friends (don't have to worry about that anymore haha). Also, by the time Eric and I get married we will have lived together for 2 1/2 years so really...nothing but *maybe* my last name are going to change on that day. In some ways I just think other people take our relationship more seriously now that we are engaged, we took it seriously before.

So, since we weren't in a massive rush, I figured we'd just get engaged sometime around summer '09 and plan a wedding for summer '10. No solid plans, if it was some other time, oh well. However, what we didn't anticipate was how crazy places at the Cape fill up in advance. There was never any thought that Eric and I would get married anywhere else other than the Cape. At some point around November last year we learned that one of the places we were seriously considering (though did not end up picking) was already filling up for 2010!

In a panic that we'd be stuck getting married on a Wednesday night (suddenly 2011 seemed too far away), we actually looked at wedding places before we were technically engaged. I seriously considered borrowing Katie's ring so that I would not look like one of those total psycho girls dragging her boyfriend to look at wedding places when he is contemplating a quick and permanent getaway to Thailand.

Anyway, back to the engagement. So, Eric had this great engagement plan in mind for awhile. It was going to be at the Cape, and he wanted to rent out one of these boats called the Catboats that go out in the Hyannis Harbor area.

You can rent them out for an hour- I think someone drives it for you and then Eric was going to propose on the boat. We were only hoping the ring would not fall into the water!

I had no idea about this plan, but Eric did tell me that his plan could only work in the summer. Oops.

So flashback to last December, it is clearly not the summer. The catboats are no where to be found and it is snowing at the Cape. No catboat ride for us. So Eric decides to embrace the current season (Christmas) and incorporate that instead of summer boat rides.

When I get home from work on December 19th (which by the way was the beginning of my vacation last year- why do I have to go til next Wednesday this year?!), Eric gives me a present...

And riding in the boat (instead of us) is my new ring :) Yay!

Though I know I would've loved the boat ride, in some ways I like this better because I think part of the fun of decorating the tree every year is reminiscing about who gave you which ornaments, what year you got them, memories that involve them etc. Now, Eric and I have a very special ornament on our tree every year that we can reminisce about!

The night we got engaged we got to go to an awesome show in Boston of How the Grinch Stole Christmas with Eric's family. It was in the middle of a massive snowstorm...

Eric's mom bought me a Grinch stuffed animal that sits on my dresser now. I like to have "souvenirs" of great days and places and now I have two from December 19, 2008.

Just for fun, here is what our wedding place looked like the day we picked it...

A little different than it will look in July '10 huh?

Okay time for "Would You Rather?" engagement style:

Would you rather...
...be home or out when you get engaged?
...be in public or by yourselves?
...pick out your own ring or have the guy pick?
...be surprised or know what is going to happen?
...have a large diamond or a sparkly diamond or no diamond at all?