I’m ashamed to admit, I no longer remember how the whole ring shopping thing came up, but some how, in about November 2007, we ended up at Shane Co.looking at rings. Digression: although we have received no compensation from Shane Co., I have to say we had a pretty great experience buying from them. Larry from Manila worked with us and we had a fun time. At least I did. I’m pretty sure Steve did too; he seemed to like examining the stones with a loupe.
Back to the point, we had purchased a setting and a diamond, and I knew that Steve had picked up the ring when it was finished and had it in his possession. But he wouldn’t let me look at it! It drove me crazy knowing that it was somewhere in his apartment. I think because we had gone ring shopping together and I knew it was coming he wanted to keep as much of the proposal a surprise as he could. And I did end up being surprised.
Fast forward to December 19, 2007. Steve had a gift certificate to a restaurant in SF, Town Hall, and he decided we needed to use it. I was certain he was going to propose over dinner. Of course, he didn’t. I was pretty disappointed. What could he possibly be waiting for?
Image courtesy of ovahere.com.
We drove back to Steve’s apartment. When he opened the door, there were candles flickering on the coffee table. They turned out to be real wax faux candles. He had worked hard to find something realistic looking that he could turn on before leaving for work that would be safe all day until I opened the door that evening. We still use the faux candles regularly; they sit atop our fireplace mantle.
When I turned on the lights, I saw a trail of pink rose petals leading into the kitchen and right up to the refrigerator, which had a single, pink long-stemmed rose slipped through the handle. When I opened the door, I saw that pretty much all the food had been cleared out and the center shelf had been removed. Instead, there was a silver tray trimmed with green Christmas garland and dusted with snow. On the tray sat a bottle of Dom Perignon, flanked by two crystal champagne flutes and two more pink roses. In the center was a box holding the sparkling engagement ring that we had picked out together. The next thing I knew, Steve was down on one knee, and I guess the rest is history.
The (empty) bottle of Dom is still around, sitting on our kitchen counter right next to our wine rack.
We used the champagne flutes from the proposal as the toasting flutes at the wedding.
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