The Proposal – Her Story

Yes, I knew it was coming. That didn’t mean I knew when, how or that I wasn’t super, ridiculous excited.

It started with Mike telling me to get a new dress for my birthday dinner. Not that he doesn’t encourage me to buy new clothes, but he was getting his jacket cleaned. This was big.

So, I got a pretty dress. Black and white retro style. I added an aqua shrug and my peep-toe Coach pumps. I looked cute. Mikey had on his suit. He looked all kinds of handsome.

The weeks leading up to my birthday were exciting. Wondering if he’d bought a ring. Wondering if he was going to finally do it. It’s been over 5 years and I’d been getting antsy.

I hoped he was taking me to Brennan’s.  It’s my favorite restaurant and it burned down during hurricane Ike nearly 2 years ago. So going there was a big deal. I like thinking that it re-opened to make our engagement special. Sort of like, all the right things falling into place to make it perfect.

About a half-hour before we left, Mike asked me if I knew where we were going. I said “Brennan’s?”. He laughed and said yes. Then my excitement kicked into high gear.

We got there and gave our car to the valet. Walked in and the hostess said “Oh, you guys look so nice!”. We hadn’t given her our name yet, but I think she knew it was a special night by how much we were beaming.

They seated us at a table that has giant wing-back chairs, so it’s all private and romantic. I ordered a chardonnay and Mike got a crown and coke. Then we ordered the most delicious food. I had the chopped salad (hearts of red romaine, cane jelly glazed bacon, pressed egg, parmesan cheese straw, and cayenne avocado dressing) and the Pontchartrain platter (grilled shrimp, red fish, lump blue crab and pan-fried oysters with rice and mushrooms in a creole butter sauce) and Mike got the Angus beef fillet with whipped potatoes.

Oh. My. Gah. Foodgasm.

After we finished, I kept wondering “OMG WHEN IS HE GOING TO DO IT?!?!?”

They came out with the dessert menus. I picked out caramel pecan pie with homemade vanilla ice-cream (pie for me, ice-cream for Mike). They put a candle in it and wrote “Happy Birthday Ali” in caramel on the plate. They also brought me a Brennan’s chef hat.

So, we ate the dessert. I’m thinking “Ok. For real. WHEN IS THIS HAPPENING?!”. Just as we finished Mike asked me what I wished for when I blew out the candle. I said I couldn’t tell him, or else it wouldn’t come true. He pressed me a bit. I said, “Something sparkly. And not vampire sparkly.”

He said, “Well, what about this?”

He starts pulling something out of his pocket and getting out of his seat. I’m about to explode with excitement! In my head I’m thinking “OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG HE’S DOING IT! OMG!!”

In the excitement, I totally missed what he was saying. I was tearing up so I couldn’t even see what he pulled out of his pocket. I had to aske him to repeat it.

He said, “Will you marry me.”

I said, “YES!”. And I was crying and kissing and him. He put the ring on my finger and got back in his chair.

Then I finally looked at it.

I was like “OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!” It’s so beautiful. I couldn’t believe how beautiful it is. How good he did. It is absolutely perfect.

We left and pulled over into a parking lot so we could call all of our families.

I keep looking at the ring. It sparkles constantly. It’s gorgeous. And perfect.

I’m so happy, not just to have a ring and be engaged, but to know we’ve finally gotten to this place. We’ve had so many downs, its nice to finally feel like we are on an up for once.

We can’t stop looking at it and holding hands and calling each other “fiancé”. This next year and a half will be amazing and we can’t wait to share it with all of you.