sara, darling.

this is meg.

you should meet her for so many reasons, least of which are that she is an amazing hairstylist and makeup artist, has impeccable style, transforms her home into a crazy christmas grotto every holiday season, and has a delightfully british husband.

she is also an amazing friend, the kind that would help orchestrate a fantastic engagement.

like mine.

prologue:
people ask me all the time if i was surprised by my engagement. i always say the same thing: yes and no. i have a long-running belief that a woman should never be totally surprised by her engagement. what i mean is, she should be at the place where you have talked about it and know that it’s the right time and the right person, and not have to think those things through while the man in question is offering you something sparkly whilst kneeling in front of you. at the same time, however, it should have an element of mystery and anticipation to it. it shouldn’t feel like you are signing a contract and just putting things down on paper.

(it occurs to me that this may be a longer story. go get a snack, i’ll wait until you get back. there? good.)

so.

the boy and i had always talked about getting married, but in the sense of “maybe if we get married [insert whatever inane topic we were discussing, like how much cool stuff we’d have or that i’d never have to buy wall art again]”. in the fall of this year, however, that discussion turned to “when we get married…”; the change of one word leads to volumes of meaning. we were settled. right person, right time, right right. good, yes?

yes…good, and then CRAZY.

see, two things happened when i finally realized that the idea of getting married didn’t make me want to hyperventilate (which took awhile). i found that in the absence of abject fear, i had (gulp!) a lot of excitement about this prospect. and then i discovered this thing called “the internet”. ohhhhh, the internet and all of it’s wedding ideas/blogs/pictures/flotsam/jetsam. once i was sure about this marriage flight plan, i realized that i was nutsy crazy excited about throwing a party.

i needed to share with someone the nuttiness that had overtaken my life.  enter meg, stage left.  meg is in my lovely circle of friends who had been tracking this relationship from the beginning, so this was not news to her or to any of them.  so, as the days of september and october moved along, i would keep meg updated as to how i was talking myself down from the “when will he propose?!!” ledge.  see, i wanted it to happen in a timeframe that would suit us both, but i also knew the boy wanted to get married next summer, and that these things take time to plan.  i also wanted to be engaged for the holidays, because how fun would that be?  silly girl.

so while meg was telling me that she was also talking to the boy (during his regular haircuts) and that the boy was definitely prepared but was also in the midst of a rather busy season (which is true), meg and the boy were plotting the engagement.

so i’m thinking that maybe this will happen in late december or january, and was making myself be prepared for such a time frame, or even later.  when i mentioned anything having to do with getting married or weddings, the boy (playing it cool) would just respond “yeah, that sounds good”, very noncommittal.

oh, what fun they had fooling me, who is not easily fooled.  me, who seems to notice everything, uncovers secrets, and is terribly nosy.  me, who thought FOR SURE i would know what was happening, and then have to pretend i didn’t.

yeah.

so.

a few weeks before the proposal, the boy and i were looking over calendars for the next month to plan out meetings/events/whathaveyou.  he looked at the calendar and said that he wanted to take me out for a date since we hadn’t gone on an official date in awhile, and he wanted to surprise me.  to which i replied “i bet you are starting to take me out on dates so that when you propose it won’t seem out of the ordinary”, somewhat in jest.  he indicated that perhaps he was doing that very thing.

then, over the next week meg advised that my hair was looking terribly long and was in sore need of her skills (it actually wasn’t).  i agreed, because we always agree with meg about tonsorial suggestions.  she said she’d see if she had any openings, and would i like her to call me?  yes, i would.  she ended up calling because she had a “cancellation” (read: she plotted to have me get my hair cut/styled in anticipation of said engagement event).  the boy also advised that his mom just decided to come down and see his art show before it closed.

so on saturday, november 7th, i got my hair cut, had lunch with the boy and his half-sister, and got ready for our date, which i was told was at a nicer place, so wear a dress.  he took me to the fine arts center, a favorite location of ours but where i had never eaten, and we had a lovely quiet dinner.  then, after dinner we were going to leave and he decided he wanted to go walk around this long glass corridor they have just to poke around.  i agreed, because our friend was getting married there the next week and i wanted to see what it would look like.  as we near the end of the hall, i realize that the museum part is closed and we can’t go anywhere else.  i said something to that effect, and the boy replied that it didn’t matter, because he had a question to ask me.

and this is where everything gets blurry.

the question.

heart pounding.

THE. QUESTION.

surely he wasn’t kidding.  was he kidding?  no, because meg just told me that he was only about to get ready to start planning.  but here he is.  he’s kneeling; there’s something shiny in his hand.  he’s talking…and saying lovely things that i can’t seem to understand or remember.

yeah, that’s pretty much how it was going in my head.

so anyway, i, in my always elegantly cool way, say “really??” instead of “yes!”, but he got the idea.

and then the security guard kicked us out.

not kidding. 🙂  we obviously look like hoodlums.

so, as we’re driving away, we’re chatting about how he talked to my parents a few weeks ago, and how he was planning this, and all that.  i’m chatting away giddily, assuming we’re just going back to his house.

until we miss the turn to his house.

mid-sentence i say “where the heck are we going?”

he brings me to our favorite restaurant/cafe/bar, shuga’s, and i can see my parents in the window.   i’m excited, because this is totally what i wanted — to have a quiet private engagement, but then get to celebrate with my family and maybe a few close friends and tell them all in person, show the ring around, all that instead of by phone.

i walk in, see my parents and his family…and then see our friends.  one by one, i recognize faces that i love.  later someone asked me if i cried when the boy proposed.  i didn’t, actually, but when i saw the face of my friend sarah and realized all of my favorite people were in one room for this moment, i did.  more faces, and more friends.  friends from here.  close friends from denver.  one of my closest girlfriends from denver.  as i’m reeling from this assemblage of people i love, hugging them and saying hello, more friends come in from craig, his hometown 5 hours away.  his “adopted family”, all of whom i love, and more of our friends from here.

it was 30 of some of our absolutely favorite people there to celebrate with us.

swoon.  he did well.

pretty much everyone has seen the lovely ring, but here it is anyway:

the perfect match for our collective style: vintage & modern.

so that’s the story. and it only took me a month after to post it!  …i’ve been a little busy.  as it turns out, once you get engaged, there are a million things to do and enjoy on top of, you know, my regular school life and finals and all that.  but, i enjoy it all.  it’s a lovely time being engaged, and (nearly) everyone has been so excited and happy to be a part of it all and surround us with love…i honestly have been taken aback by the generosity and energy of our friends.  their presence in my life is never undervalued currency for me.

but now, NOW, now i can post about all the glorious and less than glorious wedding planning flotsam and jetsam, along with all my normal drivel as well.    let the wild rumpus begin!