The thought of proposing to Larissa had been in the back of mind for quite a while... All the way back to last summer, really. I told myself I would wait until after Chris & Lara's wedding, and most likely until the winter of 2011.
Somewhere around New Year's Larissa & I started "informally" talking wedding; what we want out of a ceremony, what sort of setting/venue we envision. It was fun to think about, but to me it got me thinking, "Hm... I better do something about this sooner rather than later." She was obviously at least somewhat ready for it, and it had already been in the back of my mind for months. So I started browsing for rings online. I was unsure of when I would be able to go shopping without her (we rarely go out sans-one another on the weekends). I knew it would be fishy if I requested a solo shopping trip.
Then in mid-January I ended up with 2 snow days off from school. The 2nd day really wasn't bad weather-wise at all, so I took advantage of the unsupervised time to go shopping. In the span of a couple hours I hit-up every jewelry store in WestRoads Mall. I quickly learned which store seemed the nicest and willing to help me out. I knew more-or-less what I was after... Larissa isn't that in to diamonds, and she absolutely LOVES sapphires. My ideal ring was a white gold band with a sapphire in the middle with a smaller diamond on either side of it. At Brodkey's I found almost exactly what I had been picturing. Along with having what I was looking for, they were super-nice and took the time to show me a bunch of different options. Other stores were like, "Sapphire? Are you SURE you don't want a diamond?" So in the course of one afternoon I bought an engagement ring.
Part 1 was done. As for how I was going to present it, that would take a bit more effort. For Christmas both my brothers had given photo books as gifts. This got my brain working. I decided I would make a photo book of all the time Larissa & I had spent together, going all the way back to UB. On the last page was a picture of the ring with the words, "Will you marry me?" It took the afternoons of both snow days plus a bit more time to put it together. I ordered it, and intending to present it to her with the ring on our 18 month anniversary, January 27.
The book arrived 9 days before our anniversary. As you've already read, I just couldn't wait. By that time I had already been sitting on the ring for a week, and felt like my head was going to explode with anticipation. It didn't help that weddings were a frequent topic of conversation between us, and it seemed the plot of every TV show we sat down to watch somehow involved a wedding...
Larissa bringing home that bridal magazine was the last straw. I was still trying to hold off. I felt like waiting would make it more meaningful, or something. I don't know. But her going into the spare bedroom in search of chocolate (which was basically right where the ring & book were) gave me a good reason to go ahead with it.
It took her forever to go through that darn book... With each flip of the page I knew what we were getting closer to. I'm a pretty fidgety guy in general, but at that point I could barely sit still, and my heart was pounding. So she got to the last page, I pulled out the real ring, and there we go. "Tim Krayer has updated his relationship status to 'Engaged'!"
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