I am always fascinated with engagement stories. I love hearing about how creative a future spouse was, and sometimes the stories even bring a tear to my eye.
My own story, however, is not so intriguing. My husband and I had been dating for about 4 years, and I was at the point where I either wanted to get married or move on {although I would have been devastated moving on…}. One day he took me out to look at engagement rings, and needless to say, I was delighted. Could it really mean that he would be proposing soon? We saw some gorgeous engagement rings and I found a few I really liked.
Flash forward to Christmas a few months later. He stopped by my apartment and dropped off a few gifts for under my tree, since he would be working Christmas Day. He told me I could open them whenever I wanted. One box was really little and looked kind of like a ring box. That would be silly though, as certainly he would want to be there when I opened it right? I decided not to open the gifts until he was with me and we could exchange our gifts together. When I opened the small box, it was a ring after all. Not just any ring, but a gorgeous solitaire engagement ring! I stared at the ring, and I’m sure the look on my face was priceless. I honestly didn’t know what to think. What if I had opened it while I was alone? He got down on his knee and asked me to marry him. Of course I said yes. A big, emphatic yes. I had waited years for this moment!
It is kind of an ongoing joke in our marriage now. He thinks it is strange that I looked at the ring so funny. I still don’t understand why he said I could open the gifts whenever I wanted, and I guess I never will. It was a little anti-climatic, I have to admit, but that is neither here nor there now. I love this man with all of my heart – no matter how quirky his proposal was.
So, enough of my story. How did your spouse propose?
17 Responses
He wasn’t there when you opened the box?
Awww…but at least you got to see him later.
Wow.
how my spouse proposed?
We dated and talked a lot about marriage.
I think we were on the playground when he “officially” asked me.
And we have been together ever since.
We did the ring thing later when we picked it at at the jewelry store.
I like your story though.
I worked the midnight shift at the hospital and he would often call me around 3 a.m., when he knew I hit a lull and tended to get sleepy. We were just chatting about some friends we knew who were getting married and I made some comment about how looooooong they had been planning it. (We had been dating for 3 months at this point.) He asked how long it would take ME to plan a wedding. I said “Oh, a maybe a month.” He said “Well, what are you doing next month?” That was on April 28. We got married May 31st. Today is our 20th wedding anniversary. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to tell our story! (I didn’t get a diamond until about 18 months later.)
That is a wonderful story! He sounds like a sweetie!
Ours was more along the lines of well, should we? ya wanna? Ok, then yes.
ROFL…well that’s one way of doing it!
Ugh, I have the worst story. I don’t even have an engagement story. I dated my husband for about a year and a half, and he moved several states away for his job. He told me that he wanted me to visit him that summer, and that at the end of the summer we’d probably get engaged, and then I’d move there with him. So of course, I spent the whole summer waiting for him to propose. Nope. Then it was Christmas time, and I went to visit him over my holiday from teaching. Nothing. I finally told him that when I went back to school (I’m a teacher), and they passed out intent to return forms, I would fill it out, and whatever I said on the form is what I would do. So, if I said I was coming back, I was. And I also told him that if I stayed at that school, I was not going to continue our long distance relationship because it was too hard on me. I was miserable all the time. So he took me to Sears to look at rings because there was no other store in his tiny town where he lived. And that is how we got engaged. We had a fight, and bought a ring. Blah. I hate my engagement story, it is so lame! He claims he wanted to look for a ring when visiting his mother in Chicago (for 2 weeks!) but didn’t have time. Well, we’ve been married for 3 years now, so I guess it worked out anyway!
LOL well, it did work out. I thought mine was the lamest story, but you just might have me beat. I always dreamed of something spectacular, like you see in the movies or on YouTube. Not so much 🙁
I didn’t have any intent of getting married. My now husband and I had been dating for exactly six months the day he proposed. He actually had planned on asking me to marry him at my sorority formal that night, but I was considering transferring to a different school that had more options in my major.
He got nervous about me talking about moving away and he didn’t want a long term relationship, so, he decided that moving the proposal up to that moment would be a better idea than waiting until at my formal.
So, I was working on my old computer in our “computer room”, sitting on milk crates, and he gets comes in and gets down on one knee and asks me to marry him.
We were poor college students, so no ring–he knew my feelings on the whole ring thing–pay a bill, save it for a wedding, just don’t spend it on a piece of jewelry. I had people make rude comments about us not having a ring, but really why should it matter what our choices were.
The best part of the whole thing–on our 1st anniversary we went on a trip to Chicago. We were in a better place financially. He hands me a wrapped box about the size of a pair of shoes for my present. It was full of packing peanuts, got to the bottom of the box and there was a ring box. He was on bended knee. He told me he didn’t want me to totally miss out on that experience. 🙂 That was the sweetest thing ever.
Now, we’ve been married for almost 14 years.
that should be a long distance, not long term. LoL! I really need to proof better.
–Jayme
Awww what a nice guy! Yep – true love is pretty special – ring or not 🙂
My first thought was that he brought all the gifts over and said to open “whenever you wanted to” to see if you would wait until he was there.
our engagement story: we had been living together for 6 months, and had talked about getting married, but hadn’t done it yet. Then one day, he was in a terrible auto accident, and was in the hospital for 13 days, 9 of it in intensive care. He had a broken hip, 5 broken ribs, a ruptured disc in his neck and a concussion. On the day before he was to be released from the hospital, he asked me “Are you going to let me come to your house to recuperate?” I replied “Not unless we get married. I don’t want to take care of you for 2 years and then you just walk away.” We got married 2.5 months later when he could stand up without crutches long enough to say “I do”.
I’m so sorry to hear about his accident…but what a sweet story. I’m so glad he was okay…finally. Thanks for sharing your story!
Ummm…mine was anti climatic too.
He said something to effect of “F#*% it, let’s get married”.
He’s now my ex husband. Maybe I’m a slow learner 🙂
Oh no….that’s pretty bad alright. But now you know for next time!
That is an AWESOME story! Yep – any curb will do I suppose! He sounds like a sweet & sentimental guy – love it!
Bill and I had both been through horrible divorces and I said that I would never get married again. He would ask, “Not even to me?” and I would say, “Nope, not even you.” He would keep asking me the same thing as we were dating and getting to know each other better… soon my answer was, “Well, maybe you.”
Then we were living together and I was ironing his shirt for work at 5:30 in the morning, bed head in my jammies, one day as he was getting ready. He cam running down the stairs in his undies and said to me, “You HAVE to marry me!” and I said, “OK, sure.” We got married 6 months later.
Totally romantic, huh???
We’ve been married 14 years now and still do silly, ridiculous things almost every day.