The Proposal: His Perspective

For this Wedding Bells Wednesday (yeah, yeah, it's Tuesday night, close enough), I asked Tom to write about his proposal to me! (Which happened one month and a day ago...)

I learned some things I didn't know from this tale, too, so I hope you enjoy it!

(One photo from our engagement session...reenacted in the exact spot it happened.)

"It did not take long for Heather and I to realize that we had something special. We both knew a few months in to our relationship that we had something that would last forever. 

In the fall of 2012 (1.5 years into our relationship and 1 year before we got engaged) I started to develop my proposal plan. I knew that I needed to wait until after graduation so I could get a job and be able to afford an engagement ring. 

I knew that Autumn was Heather’s favorite season, so I had to propose in the fall. Heather loves going to the pumpkin farm and I thought what better place is there to include a fall activity and proposing to her? This was the first idea that I had and it just made sense. My proposal was still one year out so I just let the rest of the details come to me in their own time.

Now, that fall we didn’t get to go to the pumpkin farm due to scheduling issues. This upset both Heather and I. I wanted to make sure that we went the next year alone. We made a pact that we would for sure go to the pumpkin farm. Check.

In the summer of 2013 I picked up the engagement ring while Heather was on vacation with some of her family. I looked at it every night that she was away. If only she had known!

In the coming months we had very busy weekend schedules with different events and trips that we were taking. We had made plans to go the pumpkin farm in October. Over the next few months I began piecing together all of the little details of the proposal.

In September, Heather helped me arrange “the talk” with her father in St. Louis. It was nerve wracking asking him but I knew I wanted to do things by the book.

I had this idea of how I wanted to present the ring to her on a small fancy pumpkin. I had looked at many different options and thought I would end up having to make something work. Eventually I found the ideal pumpkin that I was looking for. A velvet pumpkin from LoveFeast! I knew she would love it and it would be an awesome keepsake. 

I had sent the package down to my grandpa’s house to make sure she would never have the opportunity to see it. I then determined that I needed a dark brown ribbon to tie the ring on. My mother had picked the ribbon up for me one day and then the second after Heather left, we practiced making the bow on the pumpkin.

One weekend Heather mentioned that we may have to change the weekend the we would go to the pumpkin farm. I panicked! We had to do some rearranging but we found two different weekends that we could potentially go. We decided that October 5^th would be the day.

Two weeks to go. The weather forecast two weeks out did not look so good. A cold front was supposed to be coming in and bringing all kinds of rain. I booked a fancy room at Stoney Creek Inn, a place that Heather had always wanted to go.  It is directly on the river and has a great view.

One week to go. The weather forecast was still poor for that weekend. I could not cancel my plans at this point so I just held out and hoped for the best.  I made reservations for us at Jonah’s Restaurant that was adjacent to Stoney Creek Inn. Now we wouldn’t have to walk far.

The night before we saw that the storms were not supposed to start until noon the next day, so I convinced her that we should go earlier than we had planned in order to avoid the rain. It is amazing that even though there was a 70% chance of thunderstorms, we did not see a single drop of rain.

The Day. We wake up and both get ready for our trip to the pumpkin farm. I retrieve the ring from where it was hidden, along with the velvet pumpkin. My next concern was what kind of jacket I should wear. I didn’t want her to be able to see a strange box-like shape in my coat pocket. Unfortunately it was warm outside, but I wore a jacket anyway so I could conceal the ring!

We had made it to the pumpkin farm and Heather wanted to go to the pumpkin patch right away! I convinced her that it wasn’t time yet and that we should eat some breakfast first. We ate and looked around the shopping area then went to go feed the goats! 

Heather then wanted to go to the pumpkin patch. It was happening all too fast and I wanted to savor the time! In order to slow her down I had her read me this pumpkin story that was put up on display. After she did that, now it was time. We went to get on the wagon to take us out to the pumpkin patch. 

Again to buy myself more time I convinced her that we should walk from the apple orchard to really be able to take in the autumn surroundings. She agreed. We had now made it to the pumpkin patch. Not many people are there. Good. I scout out the best place to do it and decided that it should happen at the highest point of the field, which happened to be at the complete opposite end of where we were.

We trek our way to the spot and we took a look around. My heart was pounding. My breathing was thick. I took one final look into her eyes. I pulled the ring out of my pocket. I got on one knee. Then asked her the big question…

She said YES! 

We spent some more time at the farm before returning home. I then told her to pack some things up for an overnight stay. She was excited to see where we ended up. She had no idea that this wasn’t just an ordinary Saturday! We then had a lovely and romantic evening. The End."

Thanks for writing that out, future husband! ;)