Delayed Proposal Story Part 1

This may be a bit old… I proposed to Mandrina seven months and twenty-three days ago.

Now, here’s the rest of the story.

Mandrina and I have known we were going to end up married since less than a month of dating. We just clicked. Unfortunately, it took me a while to propose.

There’s a reason for the delay. There’s always a reason.

When Mandrina got injured, I flew across the country on Christmas Eve to be with her. The probably was why her mother was happy to allow me to have the diamond that had been in her engagement ring when she came out a week later to help take care of Mandrina during her first week or so of bed rest. This would be less than two months after starting dating.

I wasn’t about to propose while she was on bed rest.

That takes us out three months, to April 2005. Then I get a phone call… my brother got engaged. Unexpectedly. Surprisingly, even. Without giving anyone prior notice, which inspired some commentary.

At which point, I suddenly had to postpone my engagement. Why? My family dynamic is at times a bit odd. In no way did I want anyone to think that I was simply copying my older brother. Since I hadn’t been discussing any forthcoming engagement, anything I did would be out-of-the-blue to too many people. So… the proposal had to be delayed. Mandrina offered briefly the compromise of eloping, which I rejected at the time (since we began planning the wedding, I’ve repeatedly decided that eloping sounded like a great idea, but Mandrina’s taken it off the table). Coupled with my brother’s planned wedding date, and my promise to propose in time to have a year’s engagement prior to our planned March 2007 wedding date, I just had to propose prior to March 2006.

So, that’s up until the end of the spring of 2005. Call it May of 2005, if you want. May being the fifth month. December being the twelfth month, there’s seven months of delaying unaccounted for.

For that last seven month delay, however, I actually had Mandrina’s reluctant approval.

You see, we decided to buy a house.

Buying a house is an expensive and credit-intensive process. Even with the main diamond “free” (okay, financially free, but definitely not psychologically free), an engagement ring is an expensive purchase. Especially when looking at a three stone ring. So despite months of shopping (which we continued during the house buying process), we decided out of necessity to delay the engagement until after the house was purchased.

House buying took longer than expected. We had some work to do for the mortgage, then well… we couldn’t find a house!

So come December, it strikes me that I’m about to introduce Mandrina to my family, as she’s going home with me for Christmas. That way I didn’t have to worry about having to dash back to Seattle if anything went wrong. Now, I’m efficient — substitute “lazy” where appropriate — and didn’t want to have to go through all the hassle of announcing our engagement. In addition, Mandrina loves (obsessively) New York City — as only a person who has never lived there truly can. So I think to myself that maybe I should ignore the continued failure to purchase a house, and stop delaying this engagement.

I know more or less what Mandrina wanted in a ring by this point — and now I just needed to find someone who could make it in platinum in about three weeks. The chain stores fairly annoyed me; the one I didn’t mind would take too long.

I randomly went into the small jewelry shop literally around the corner from where my apartment was. Met a young guy, who I managed to get along with! I told him my tale, he frowned for a moment, wanted to know what I wanted it to look like, then said sure. Jason told me it would be done the day I needed it. And it was. So the very day we were leaving town, I snuck out to get the engagement ring. In a nice wooden box and everything! Unfortunately, I was going to be flying with Mandrina, and couldn’t afford it being placed in checked baggage. Nor could I let Mandrina see it while going through security — OR WHILE PACKING. Made for a very stressful trip, let me tell you.

So now we’re in New York, with an engagement ring Mandrina didn’t even know I was shopping for. For more, please stay tuned for Part 2!!!