Three years ago today Robert asked me to marry him. I was thinking about things that happened around that time and thought I would write them down and share with you.
This story starts a couple weeks before November 2. In October of 2004 Robert and I had been dating for about ten months. We had already talked about marriage and thought of it as something that would happen eventually, but not until the next year sometime. Ideally we were thinking April, but I was in my junior year of college and I really wanted to do a foreign field study in the summer of 2005. So we started thinking maybe August after I came home, although logistically we weren’t sure how that would work out, planning a wedding with me in a different country. Either way, we felt a wedding was still far in the future.
Around this time we found out that my dad had been called up for active duty to Iraq. He would be leaving for training that month, remaining in the U.S. until the New Year. Then he would go to Iraq for a year. Well that put a kink in our marriage plans. I wanted my Dad to be there for my wedding, but now that meant waiting until the next December. I was already having doubts about an August wedding because I thought waiting until August felt like forever.
The day before my Dad left for training Robert and I drove up to Camp Williams for the farewell lunch that they had for the soldiers and their families. On the drive there Robert and I were discussing what this meant for our future plans, and I turned to him and said, “Why don’t we just get married this December?” So that’s what got the ball rolling for our short engagement. My Dad would probably be able to come back around Christmas so we could get married a few days before Christmas. We suddenly had a lot of planning to do.
The first time we told anyone what we were thinking was when we were back at my apartment on a weekend evening. My brother Chris was there, as well as a bunch of my roommates. There was a lot of chitchatting among everyone, including Robert and I. We were having our own little conversation at the kitchen table about wedding things, and I asked, “Should we tell people?” After all, they needed to know too if they were going to be at the wedding. So as we sat there at the table we announced that we were going to get married in December. It was kind of out of the blue and everyone was shocked, but very happy.
We still weren’t “officially” engaged however. Robert had not talked to my Dad, had not gotten down on one knee and had not asked me “Will you marry me.” And I had no ring!
Stay tuned for the next installment of Robert and Melarie’s proposal.
2 comments:
Funny, I seem to remember that it was me who suggested "Why don't we just get married in December"
...and I distinctly remember saying that.
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