Blogathon # 48: How I became engaged…

Time Posted: 8:32am EST

This is the last question I will be answering tonight and it came from a friend on facebook:

How did you propose to your wife?

Again, another great question! There’s a chance I may have posted something about this already but with almost 3000 entries, Im too lazy to check. Its also a great story that I love telling over and over again so I don’t mind posting it again, if that happens to be the case. It’s not the most romantic thing you’ll likely ever hear, but I think it’s pretty cute.

A little background: Leah and I met in St.John’s on December 15th, 1996 at the campus bar known as The breezeway. She was there with friends and having fun, and I was there to kill time before I took a flight home to visit my parents for Christmas. She was there to celebrate a friends birthday and to also celebrate the end of her first semester at the University. We met, we danced a few times and then we swapped phone numbers and went our separate ways. I wrote the number down twice in my dorm room and hid them in to separate locations so I wouldnt lose it. I called her and we had our first date three weeks later.

Fast forward to August 1997, which is the month I took Leah to Ontario to meet my family. It was after the summer semester had just finished and we had been going out for almost eight months. Just by watching us interact, my Mom could tell I wanted to marry her and live with her the rest of my life. She asked me if I had a ring. I said no, but I was saving up for one. She did something I will never forget. She gave me the engagement ring that used to belong to my Grandmother. This ring was over 70 years old and was huge! My mom gave me this ring and told me to purpose to her whenever I wanted.

The day I chose was August 21st, 1997. My older brother pulled a few strings and landed up some last minute floor seats to the Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast at the Princess of Wales theatre in Toronto. My cousin who is a manager at one of the biggest hotels in the big city booked us a room for the night so we could spend the night together and not have to travel home after the show. We were in the hotel room dressing up and getting ready to leave for the show, and I turned around dropped on one knee and popped the question. I never had the guts to do it in public, and gave her a little privacy. It was a good move cause she said yes and took the ring from me. We saw an amazing show that night, and then spent the night eating room service while talking about how amazing it was to be engaged and when we should get married. It was an amazing night and one I will never, ever forget. I hope she feels the same way about it too.

And if you thought that was romantic… I still have the ticket stubs for that show in my wallet.

Peter