Stories - The Proposal
Steve writes:
Our nine year anniversary was on June 30th, 2010. We alternate each year who is responsible for planning the day. This year was my year, and I decided to capitalize by finally proposing to Becky. Self admittedly, I put everything off to the last possible second. And not to say I hadn't kicked around possible proposal ideas at all during the last nine years, but I never actually made a decision. But now that I had The Ring in my pocket, it was time to plan the actual day.
I had three goals for the night. For it to be a surprise, to have fun, and most importantly for it to be meaningful and by definition, romantic. After waiting nine years, there is a lot of pressure to top the past. How can anything I do surprise someone I've spent so much time with and at the same time keep it meaningful and personal? The best and most natural option I could think of was get back to our roots and recreate our first date.
The night started at 6pm, when I had picked Becky up from the train station after a long day of work. She got in the car and I asked her if she wanted to stop home at first before we went out to dinner. She told me whatever I wanted to do, at which point I cut across two lanes of traffic to the left turn lane, and off we went to stop number 1, The Macaroni Grill.
Becky kept asking where we were going, and I kept telling her to dinner and that it was a surprise. It is kind of far from where we live now and where the train station was, about 30 minutes. That was part of the reason I asked if she need to stop home first. To kill time, I put all the music we used to listen to when we first started dating into a playlist on the iPod. For us driving was part of the destination as much as it was part of the journey. Becky started getting antsy 20 minutes in, and started formulating predictions of where I was taking her, one she said was good the other worried her. I knew the one she worried about and I initially considered going there, but didn't want to start the night on a sour note. She was thinking of The Old Bridge, and why that worried her is another story.
We kept driving along, and I realized we had been driving too long. I confessed to Becky I think we passed it and told her we were looking for the Macaroni Grill to which she responded "Thank God!". We turned around and finally arrived at our first destination. She asked me why I picked the Macaroni Grill. I told her it was throw back date night, and this is the place we went for dinner on our first date. 
She said "Really? Are you Sure?" I was pretty sure. I distinctly remember I was disappointed that there was no actual grilled macaroni and cheese on the menu. Then again it was a long time ago, but I'm pretty sure. :) After a surprisingly delicious meal, comped cheesecake and bottle of wine, we embarked on our next journey: The Nickel Arcade.
Being kids, the Nickel Arcade provided tons of cheap thrills. Lots of Tekken, and lots of Skee-ball. Only problem was from the Macaroni Grill, it was another 40 minute drive across the suburbs. But it had to be there, and like I mentioned, driving was part of the experience. The only way it could have been better is if we still had the red Taurus.
We finally got there, and I don't know if we just remembered it differently or if it had gone through changes, but the poor nickel arcade seemed a shell of its former self. We made the best of it though, and had fun playing skee-ball when we could steal it away from the all the kiddies. We didn't earn enough tickets to buy anything good so we saved them for next time. I told Becky that we had one more stop to make before calling it a night. As far as I could tell she still had no idea what my end game was. Things were going great and pretty much to plan. Our last destination was a 30 minute drive to "Our Spot."
Our spot was the place we could escape from everyone in our cars. Our spot was safe. Our spot was also safe from those pesky police officers who frown upon you staying in spots. Our spot is where nights turned into mornings. Our spot is where we would talk about our long days. Our spot is where we first told each other we had fallen in love. Our spot can be considered the center of our universe. Our spot is the most meaningful place I could think to propose.
Pretty quickly Becky figured out where we were going. I expected as much, but she hadn't figured out my intention. It had a been a long while since we last visited, but it felt like a homecoming. We moved to the back seat listening to the music and talking. I steered the conversation towards our relationship. I told her how incredible the last 9 years have been. That I never wanted to forget our beginnings, and that everything we've done since then has built on that. I told her how I wanted to spend forever with her as I reached to the floor to grab the box. I remember hearing "oh my gosh, what are you doing?!" as I asked her to marry me.
As for the ring fitting? Kind of. She wore it for a couple weeks before we decided it was too big. We sent it back to Blue Nile and they were able to resize it for us.
All in all the proposal went off without a hitch, and I couldn't be happier to finally be engaged and soon married to the most important person in my life.