So, Are You Going to Marry Me or What?
This August the HP and I will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. This June, like every June, has been filled with wedding specials on TV and in magazines and even the newspapers. The constant barrage of wedding crap has prompted me to think back to my own engagement evening, which is unlikely to inspire any TV producer to knock on our door to share the heartwarming tale with America. So, screw the TV producers, I’m going to tell you myself.
We got engaged eleven years ago on the first Sunday in June in Philadelphia, following the CoreStates Bike Race, which is a professional bike race that loops through the city 10 times (I don’t know what it’s called now that CoreStates bank is gone). The HP spent the entire day drinking with his friends in Philadelphia, while I spent the entire day trapped in a car with my brother and sister returning from my cousin’s wedding in Massachusetts (that was the day that my brother taught me the Dr. Seuss game, and when I recover from it, I will tell you about it). We stopped at my grandfather’s house in New Jersey to take a break, and I called the HP at his friend’s house. He was, shall I say, rather tipsy and after a few moments he thought we had been cut off, but he didn’t hang up the phone. I was reduced to yelling his name into the phone as I listened to him carry it around and tell his friends “I’d better keep this with me. She’ll probably call right back.” I finally gave up and headed home, hoping that by the time I got there he would have hung up the phone again.
When we met up in Philly the HP was, shall I say, rather hammered. We hung around with his friends for a while and then as they dozed off or wandered off one by one, we headed back to my part of town to have dinner. We went to an Irish bar down the street from my apartment and ordered dinner, and then the HP popped the question – I think. He did not have a ring on him, but he seemed serious enough, although he was, shall I say, blindly drunk. I said something terribly meaningful and profound like “Um, yes,” at which point he made his way over to the band, grabbed a microphone, and announced to the crowd “I just ashked Shannon to marry me, and she said yes!” Everyone applauded and that was that.
Later I learned that he had shared his plan to propose with one person, his best friend’s girlfriend that no one liked, including his best friend. Over the year’s I have tried to find out why he chose her to confide in (she, needless to say, is no longer within our circle of friends and unavailable for comment). He can’t tell me, but I’ll always cling to the fact that he told her first, so he must have meant to ask me when he did even though at the time he was, shall I say, slosho.
About a week later he came to my apartment with champagne and roses and a ring and proposed the regular way, but it doesn’t stick in my mind the way the first one does. He had gotten ring advice from a woman with gargantuan hands, so the ring was 3 sizes too big. If it had been the big moment, it might have seemed a little sad that the ring didn’t fit. But since the question had already been asked and answered, we were already moving on together, and at that point the ring didn’t matter. (Of course once I got that baby resized, I wore it constantly, until I started injuring the children with it and had to put it away for a while.) Our story is not likely to inspire many imitators, but the HP’s approach must have been an effective tact. Ten years later, you can’t argue with success.
We got engaged eleven years ago on the first Sunday in June in Philadelphia, following the CoreStates Bike Race, which is a professional bike race that loops through the city 10 times (I don’t know what it’s called now that CoreStates bank is gone). The HP spent the entire day drinking with his friends in Philadelphia, while I spent the entire day trapped in a car with my brother and sister returning from my cousin’s wedding in Massachusetts (that was the day that my brother taught me the Dr. Seuss game, and when I recover from it, I will tell you about it). We stopped at my grandfather’s house in New Jersey to take a break, and I called the HP at his friend’s house. He was, shall I say, rather tipsy and after a few moments he thought we had been cut off, but he didn’t hang up the phone. I was reduced to yelling his name into the phone as I listened to him carry it around and tell his friends “I’d better keep this with me. She’ll probably call right back.” I finally gave up and headed home, hoping that by the time I got there he would have hung up the phone again.
When we met up in Philly the HP was, shall I say, rather hammered. We hung around with his friends for a while and then as they dozed off or wandered off one by one, we headed back to my part of town to have dinner. We went to an Irish bar down the street from my apartment and ordered dinner, and then the HP popped the question – I think. He did not have a ring on him, but he seemed serious enough, although he was, shall I say, blindly drunk. I said something terribly meaningful and profound like “Um, yes,” at which point he made his way over to the band, grabbed a microphone, and announced to the crowd “I just ashked Shannon to marry me, and she said yes!” Everyone applauded and that was that.
Later I learned that he had shared his plan to propose with one person, his best friend’s girlfriend that no one liked, including his best friend. Over the year’s I have tried to find out why he chose her to confide in (she, needless to say, is no longer within our circle of friends and unavailable for comment). He can’t tell me, but I’ll always cling to the fact that he told her first, so he must have meant to ask me when he did even though at the time he was, shall I say, slosho.
About a week later he came to my apartment with champagne and roses and a ring and proposed the regular way, but it doesn’t stick in my mind the way the first one does. He had gotten ring advice from a woman with gargantuan hands, so the ring was 3 sizes too big. If it had been the big moment, it might have seemed a little sad that the ring didn’t fit. But since the question had already been asked and answered, we were already moving on together, and at that point the ring didn’t matter. (Of course once I got that baby resized, I wore it constantly, until I started injuring the children with it and had to put it away for a while.) Our story is not likely to inspire many imitators, but the HP’s approach must have been an effective tact. Ten years later, you can’t argue with success.
posted by Shannon at 10:42 PM
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