An engagement story

Last year on the occasion of our third anniversary I talked about my diminished mental capacity in proposing to my wife in Savannah – in August. A little over a month later I recounted the anniversary of our first date and how we’ve always tried to celebrate it.

Back then I said that our engagement was a story for another day and with today marking our fourth wedding anniversary, I figured I’d finally get around to filling in the gap.

The engagement itself isn’t all that interesting mostly because I jumped the gun after picking up the ring from the diamond broker I used and a stressful three and a half hour ride from Charlotte to Savannah. As opposed to going somewhere more memorable, I ended up asking her in our hotel room as we were heading out to dinner.

And by ask her, I totally mean that I had paid someone to put my words into caligraphy on a scroll as a keepsake because I was pretty sure I’d completely go blank when the time came.

What is probably even more interesting, to me anyways, is how the engagement came to be in the first place. We were heading up to Buffalo in July 2005 for a wedding and decided to spend a few days visiting her parents in Rochester before and after the event.

A few months prior I had dragged a female friend of mine out ring shopping with me and had put a deposit on the one I wanted. We discussed visiting Savannah, a place we’d both always wanted to see, and planned the trip as an “end of summer” vacation for ourselves so as not to arouse any suspicions with sudden “getaway” plans.

Everything in my mind appeared to be set. The only thing left to do was to get some time alone with her father when we went to visit and ask for his permission.

The first day we were to be in Rochester my wife had been planning to take her mother out for a pedicure. To me this was the absolute perfect opportunity to speak with her father. I had envisioned a nice lunch at his favorite place where we’d toast to the occasion with a Spaten or two.

Unfortunately, these words of Robert Burns via Steinbeck have haunted me since sophomore English in high school: “the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglay”.

The trip for manicures never happened and no opportunity between the time we arrived in Rochester and had to depart for Buffalo presented itself to get her father alone without showing my hand. Since we were going to spend two days with her parents after the wedding I quickly began scheming as to how I was going to get five minutes alone with him.

While in Buffalo I tried to gently encourage that my wife consider taking her mother for that pedicure, but that ship seemed to have sailed because she did her own for the wedding and no longer needed one. Not wanting to push my luck I simply decided that if it was meant to be that the opportunity would show itself to me.

Fast forward to the afternoon of our last day in Rochester and I still had not found that opportunity. We had plans to take them out for dinner that night and I had resigned myself to the possibility that I would have to call him to ask after we were home. That idea disappointed me because I wanted to do it face to face and shake his hand.

Finally, late that fateful Monday afternoon my wife’s mother asked her for some help folding laundry. With them heading indoors to attend to things I was at long last finally alone with my future father in law except he happened to be in the pool.

Realizing this was the moment I had been waiting for I dove in, literally. Not knowing how long the girls would be gone I dispensed with the small talk and got straight to the reason I joined him in the pool.

Of all the times and places I had imagined having that conversation with him, hurriedly asking him while wading in ice cold water with no beer to celebrate was never one of them. Still, the relief of having finally secured his permission washed over me.

After nearly six years together, five years since our engagement and four years of marriage I can honestly say that I wouldn’t change a thing.

I’d also like to wish a very happy fourth anniversary to my Twitter BFF John Cave Osborne and his wife Lovie. It is a pretty wild coincidence that JCO and I both managed to overachieve in the wife department on the exact same day only to meet a few years later through our blogs about fatherhood.