Five Years After the Proposal
Five years ago today, Drew asked me to marry him. I’ve told the proposal story a bunch of times, but for those who can’t get enough (or, you know, haven’t heard it before): pre-Jackson, we always had a Friday evening tradition of meeting up after work and getting shit-faced at Happy Hour somewhere and then eating a drunken dinner around 8 and then falling dead-asleep at like 9:30 with our contacts still in. Romance! Anyway, it was a Friday evening five years ago when Drew asked if I wanted to meet him for a walk in Central Park before getting shit-faced, and I was like, “Sure, why not?” At the time, we lived in Manhattan, about a ten-minute walk from the park (and Drew worked/still works about ten minutes from the park in another direction).
I had a week earlier given him my great-grandmother’s engagement ring, procured from my mother over the holidays, with instructions to have it sized and give it back to me “when he was ready.” Valentine’s Day was coming up, as was our vacation to Costa Rica a few weeks later, but I didn’t think Drew was the kind of guy to propose on either of those occasions, so when he asked me to meet him for a walk in the park, for a minute I did think, “Oh, this is it!” I remember taking extra care with my makeup and hair and I took a quick selfie before heading out the door, I guess just to document the occasion in case it turned into An Occasion. But it was so cold outside that, by the time I got to the park, all I was thinking about was getting warm and how I couldn’t feel my fingers and I’d totally forgotten the possibility of a proposal.
So, it was a surprise after all when we were walking along a bridge in the park and Drew pointed to something on the ground below and I turned to look and saw in big chalk letters: “Wendy, Will you marry me? – Drew”. I said yes, he put my great-grandmother’s ring on my finger, we kissed, and then we went and got shit-faced. But on fancy champagne instead of our usual tequila because we are romantic like that.
Yesterday, Drew reminded me that “tomorrow is the anniversary of our engagement,” and I said, “I thought it was today.” And he said, “No, I think it’s the 6th.” And then we had to look at a calendar — “It was 2009, right?” He asked. “Yeah,” I said, after thinking a second — and sure as shit, he was right.
I guess we have three anniversaries — Oh, Romance!: the day we met (May 5); the day we got engaged (today); and the day we were married (7/24). Oh, and then there’s the day we first talked on the phone (4/20), which Drew always has to remind me of because I forget, and the day I moved to New York… which I can’t really remember right now (September 30th? October 1st??). And then there’s the day we found out I was pregnant (2/10).
This spring will mark eight years since we met. Wait, let me do the math real quick. Yes! Eight years. And while I hope that is just a drop in the bucket and that we’ll have fifty or sixty more years together, eight is long enough that we are beginning to feel like we are, in fact, growing old together. Or, older. Eight years is long enough to begin feeling like different people than we were when we met. And it’s interesting to see how our changes as individuals change our relationship. And maybe marking time as we do with all these anniversary dates is just a way to remind ourselves of who we once were and how far we’ve come… and that it goes by fast. Maybe it’s just a good way to remind us to pause and be grateful.
Last weekend we took an overnight trip to an inn upstate. We left Jackson behind at home (not by himself) and on our walk to the subway to catch the Metro North at Grand Central a neighbor and his son saw us and the son asked where Jackson was. “He’s at home,” I said, “with a babysitter. We’re sneaking away to have a little time to ourselves.” The father grinned at us and said, “That’s great! Congratulations. That’s hard to do.”
Hard to organize, maybe. But worth it. And important. And fun.
We are different people now than we were when we met — we’re even different now than we were when we got engaged five years ago. And I’m still very much learning about the challenges on a long-term relationship and how to keep a marriage happy, but one thing I was reminded of again is to slow down occasionally, be grateful for what you have, and take time getting to know how the people you’ve become/are becoming fit together. That, and I can’t get shit-faced like I used to anymore and still function the next day. Romance.
Beautiful!
Oh I loved this so much. In fact – I just sent it to my new husband to read. I hope that’s us in 5 years! Thank you for making my heart smile today!
Awww… I love this, Wendy.
So true about how you’ve been together long enough to have changed as people over that time. I’ve been with Dave for 7 years, and over that time we’ve both grown and changed a lot. I’m happy that we’ve changed together, and probably grown closer through those changes instead of growing apart. Hopefully when we take that next step and become parents we’ll continue to grow together. Thank God for this site, because I’ve learned that you can’t just expect that to happen!
I love reading your personal anecdotes on life as a mother, wife, and friend. I love even more how honest you are when you write them! Happy Proposal Anniversary to you and Drew 🙂
I love proposal stories! We’ve been together about 4.5 yrs (known each other for almost 5!!) and we’ve definitely changed. We were 21 when we met! So obviously we’re very different at 26 than we were at 21. I’m thankful that my fiance and I were able to grow together even with 3 yrs of long distance and that our priorities/values still match up. When filling out some pre-marital forms for our church, my fiance brought up the point that we are so much more settled than we were at the beginning of our relationship. So things are less of an emotional rollercoaster of “where are we going to live, where am I going to get a job, etc…”. So that has been a really good change to adjust to and over the past year or year and a half we’ve changed into a “normal” (i.e. not long-distance) couple.
I think you brought up a good point that both people need to introspective and look at who they are and make sure they are both adapting to the person they have become and who their partner has become. This has given me something to think about. I’ve also been thinking about communication styles recently. My fiance and I are really good at bringing up potential issues, but I want to make sure we are both hearing/understanding each other. I want to focus on making sure i”m communication so he completely understands what I’m saying.
This is really sweet.
It’s crazy to think how much changes and will continue to change.
My husband and I have been married 15 years! Sometimes it feels like forever and sometimes it feels like it hasn’t been that long. We married young, I was 23 and he was 26, so we have grown a lot during our marriage, thankfully we’ve grown more “together” than we even were when we married. Hopefully we have many, many more years together 🙂
This is sweet. Mr and I have been together for 6 years and considering that I was 19 back then, we certainly have changed a lot.
Adorable! I love engagement stories, too (I also love your green hat). I got engaged after dating my now-fiancé for just 6-months, and we celebrated our 1-year dating anniversary last night. We’re super romantic, too – we went to Cracker Barrel, called our moms to check in (we’re having nasty weather in the Philly area), then read through the emails we sent each other when we first met online. It was really sweet because we’ve actually done most of the things we initially said we’d like to do together some day (like visiting The Strand in NYC and taking off work to spend a day at Gettysburg).
Love this. My husband and I live right outside of Philly and everything about the city and a few of the surrounding ‘burbs remind me of our relationship. Anyway, we always talk about going to Gettysburg too and your post reminded me of that, so we’re planning to go soon. So, thanks! Congrats on your engagement and one-year date-anniversary!
Thank you! I’ve lived in the Philly burbs for almost 3 years now and I love it. Mr. LP and I have plans to take bigger vacations as well, but we love that there’s so much within driving distance. I hope you and your husband have a great time when you visit Gettysburg! And I hope you have power and weren’t inconvenienced by the storms. I only lost power for a few minutes on Wednesday but I have several friends who aren’t expecting to have power again until Sunday.
Same! Our lights flickered for a few minutes, but that’s it. Except for having massive piles of snow blocking a ton of parking space, I can’t complain. I work in KoP and all of my co-workers lost power, but won’t have theirs back til Sunday either. It’s awful 🙁 Do you have any recs for other places to visit outside of Philly? I lived in Center City for 10 years and I was pretty awful about leaving it to venture out for day trips, other than the Jersey shore. Happy to hear that you love the burbs too! It took some getting used to since I’d been in the city for so long, but it’s so nice having space and I’m definitely not as stressed. Hope you are having a great weekend!
Aw, this is adorable. Fabello & I just had a conversation yesterday about how young we were when we started dating (well, not THAT young–22 & 25) & how much we’ve changed. And how much better our relationship is now (both of us used to be very high-anxiety…”such-and-such happened? You feel such-and-such way? Everything is dooooooomed!”) It took a lot of growing up & adjusting to get to a comfortable place. But we’re happy with that place now (d’aw)
Very sweet. My husband and I have also been together for 8 years, will be celebrating 5 years of marriage on 7/4, and have a son who is just a few months younger than Jackson. I do feel like we’ve changed in so many ways, but those (sometimes undefinable) things that make us compatible have stayed the same. Congratulations to you and Drew and I wish you many more happy years together.
Wait, can we talk about getting married on July 4? Are you in the US? How was it? Were things available to you? Were the courts open? Where was your wedding? Did you watch fireworks? Was it hard to get people to attend on the holiday?
Gf wants to get married on July 4 and you’re the first person I’ve “met” who was married that day.
The courts won’t be open, but you won’t need them to be (unless you where planning to do the ceremony at the courthouse). You’d likely get your license a few days (or weeks) prior to the ceremony date. My parents married on the 2nd and it worked out just fine. Vendors etc should be wide open to that date- it’s not a very popular wedding date! (Although I think it would be great. You’d get fireworks every anniversary!)
So, I have absolutely nothing to say about getting married on the 4th of July in the US, but I have a friend who lives in Europe, was born on the 4th of July (in the US, although he’s foreign), and is getting married on the 4th of July, aka his birthday! But when he was here, he always liked that his birthday was a holiday and that there were fireworks.
The thing is, I don’t want my wedding anniversary to conflict with cookouts! Like, I don’t want to be sweating my ladyballs off because it’s so goddamn hot on my anniversary.
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And also, my mom got married on July 3, TWICE, and neither time worked out. So it kind of puts a bad feeling in my mouth for early-July weddings.
Haha. I think it will be very hard to avoid having your anniversary ever cross over with another event, so I personally wouldn’t fret about that. But y’all should def be in agreement on the date.
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Why would someone ever get married twice on the same day?? Was it to the same person? Otherwise that sounds cray cray!
Well, she married my mom on July 3, and then she married her third husband on the 3rd because HIS parents got married on the 3rd and were together for like 50 years. I tried to tell her that his parents’ good fortune was canceled out by her own misfortune, but she didn’t listen.
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They separated less than a year later.
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Now, my grandparents (my grandmother’s third husband) got married on July 6 and they’re quite happily together 28 years later.
How interesting!
Y’all don’t even know the half of my mom’s interestingness. Remind me to talk about her on the next deleted thread.
Goddammit I can’t type. The above is me, as is the thing below under Christy. Ugh.
Ross and my first date was on July 3rd. We got engaged on July 4th (because the fireworks on the 3rd were kinda wrecked). I don’t think we’ll get married on the 3rd, because I just feel like that would make travel plans harder for everyone.
Who cares about other people? Its YOUR DAY!
Haha. We care about having the people we want there.
God you’re selfish.
None of our guests had trouble with travel for our Memorial Day wedding. The only issue was hotel availability- but that was due to a soccer tournament in the area and there is no way we could have planned for that. So, if you want to get married on the 3rd do it. Chances are everything will be fine, and if there is trouble it will be from an unpredictable source.
Yeah, honestly we’re gonna have such a small wedding we’re probably just going to poll people and then choose a weekend when everyone can come.
We asked the VIP people (parents, siblings, and a few others). I think you’ll drive yourself nuts if you try to get EVERY guest to have the same free day. AND even the people who where free initially, some had other things come up (like a graduation date getting moved). So really, I totally get wanting to please everyone, but you do have to draw a line at some point and do what best for you and your soon to be spouse.
Oh, yeah, I mean, when I say small I mean small, haha. There are fewer than 20 people who we want there, so we’re gonna try our hardest to have all of them there.
Haha, okay that is TINY!! Shouldn’t be too hard to coordinate.
At some point of course we’ll just say “fuck it” and get married in front of whoever can make it.
But good to hear it wasn’t an issue for you.
The 3rd is a good day. It’s my birthday!
MY DAD! She married my dad! My mother = definitely straight. Goddammit I was having a hard time yesterday.
ladyballs. snort.
My sister’s SIL is having her wedding on July 4th. Outside. In Maryland. No one is looking forward to the weather-related issues. It’s gonna be so hot and sweaty. I don’t think anyone would mind missing a cookout for a wedding though. It’s like a way-better cookout! With better music and food and drinks.
Okay, I just looked at the weather in San Diego and the record precip for July 4th is 0.00″. It has literally not rained on the 4th of July there in the probably 100ish year record.
Yeah, that’s my fear with anniversaries. But with the CA elopement plan, the weather won’t factor in. We probably wouldn’t end up having a celebratory party in MD until the fall. (The current plan is to have a “family reunion” at the MD Zoo and rent a pavilion and get tickets! It’s pretty AND THINK OF THE PICTURES. My grandpa works with the “animal ambassadors” and I’m trying to convince gf to have penguins visit us. IT’S LIKE THEY’RE IN TUXES.)
I have many feelings about this potential future wedding.
Penguins are the best. This plan is genius
I heard its cheaper to get married on holidays.
My mother’s family has a tradition of getting married on holidays:
Mom and Dad: April Fool’s Day
Aunt 1 and Husband: Halloween
Uncle and Wife: Valentine’s Day
Aunt 2 and Husband: Independence Day.
Not sure if they all did it because of cost, but my parents’ wedding only cost them $300. (I second everything GG just said about how you won’t need the courts to be open because you won’t need them. And yes, there were fireworks after my Aunt’s reception!)
Aunt 1 and Husbands two kids were born on Mother’s Day and Christmas.
Guess who is the only couple still married.
Mom and dad?
Ayup. Everyone thought they were doomed because of the date.
The minister that married all of them later told my mother that of all her siblings, her marriage is the one that he thought wouldn’t last because she and my dad are “not enough alike”. Ass.
What a lovely thing to say. Ugh.
Labor Day, Memorial Day, and Valentine’s Day probably won’t be cheaper, but I believe the rest should be.
edit- and those dates like 12.13.14 could be more expensive (or at least not discounted) because people think it’s cool to get married on those days.
I got married Memorial day weekend (we got married on a Tuesday), and it was quite cheap (probably because it was a Tuesday). But it meant that we got to do lots of fun pre-wedding stuff with everyone who traveled for it. Most folks came out the Friday before, and stayed through the wedding. I was so happy that we actually got to spend time with everyone who traveled.
Oh, and now it means we always get a 3 day anniversary weekend.
We got married the Saturday of Memorial Day and didn’t get any breaks. So yeah, I’d assume the Tuesday was the cause! But I did love the extra days to spend with people! And that we’ll always have a 3 day weekend 🙂
I would LOVE to go to a July 4th wedding. That would be super fun.
I kinda want to get married on NYE, because it’s our dating anniversry, but Fabello was like, “UM I thought you were anti big-deal wedding, anti it’s-my-very-special-day; you wanna make peiple attend our wedding on New Year’s? No one will come ” (paraphrased) but I feel like a wedding would be a cool thing to attend? Like no one plans events as far in advance as you’d get a wedding invitation, so it’s not like we’d interfere? Or maybe he’s right, haha. I dunno. I like the idea of winter weddings, too
Also, Christy, I thought your gf was on the fence about marriage 😮 ha
I was just having this discussion. Came to the conclusion that everyone would come.
I would go. I don’t have a problem with holiday weddings (heck we had ours Memorial Day weekend). A family member and a good friend (2 different people) gave up their annual trips to come to our wedding; the people closest to you won’t mind.
She’s on the fence about kids, too, even more so, but we still have names picked out, lol.
Oh, yes to the wedding on New Year’s thing! Do it! Ever since one of my friends went to a New Year’s Eve wedding, I totally wanted to go to one. I mean, everyone’s always looking for plans on that date and a celebration of someone getting married with alcohol and dancing sounds amazing!
Okay nice, I might have to suspend my. “you are forbidden from DW” rule in order to show him this!
I would go, for sure! I haven’t done anything fun for NYE in years. (Not that I’m inviting myself to your fake wedding). Although, I wouldn’t want to drive home after with all the drunks, so you should have it at a hotel or in a city or something where hotels are really close by.
I’ve been to two weddings on NYE and they were really fun.
A friend got married President’s Day weekend and she said it was winter, and therefore cheaper, and everyone had an extra recovery day! It was still a swanky wedding. Her dad said “It is like buying a new Mercedes, and then driving it off a cliff”
This is so adorably sweet 🙂 I don’t know anyone remembers any of these dates! I don’t know when my husband and I first started dating. It was in either June or July. Before July 18 (because I know it was before my bonus son’s bday). And I’m pretty sure it was in 2006. Maybe. And we got engaged on November… 4th? 3rd? I dunno, sometime in November of 2007. I think it was 2007 at least. I know what day we were married at least — 4/4/09. That’s quite easy to remember.
I’m sitting here trying to pinpoint the YEAR we started dating. 08? 09?
I just went back and looked through old emails- My first email to Dave was on 2/3/07. We missed our anniversary! Oh well. We met about a month later, but I forget the exact date.
You met him online? I don’t think I knew that!
Craigslist, of all places. And we’re both totally normal!! Who woulda thought.
Whaaa? Story please!
I think I’ve told this story before?? But anyway… I was trying to convince my friend to try online dating, because she really wanted a boyfriend but wasn’t having much luck. So she was like “You do it first, and then I’ll try it” So, I agreed. I didn’t want to pay for a site though or set up a profile, so I posted a personal on CL and replied to a few ads. I actually went on 3 or 4 dates with totally normal guys I met through there. Anyway, Dave had an ad up that mentioned his cat in the tag line. Something about being sick of talking to his cat and wanting to meet new people. The cat hooked me, and I emailed him. We emailed for about a month before we met. My friend was actually kind of on our first date, too… I was supposed to have dinner with her and meet him for drinks after, but she was late for dinner, and he was early for drinks, so the 3 of us had dinner together then he and I went off on our own. She was my MOH at our wedding, which was cute.
After 2 or 3 moths of dating we realized that we actually had some mutual friends and might have ended up meeting eventually anyway.
Love it!
Ugh I mistyped my email so LBH? beat me to it. Anyway…
Happy Engagement Anniversary, dear Wendy and Drew! You two are just adorable– what a cute photo.
Happy Engagement Anniversary, Wendy!! Although your math made me realize that this September I’ll have known my boyfriend for 10 years, and now I feel old…
How lovely Wendy!
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We have a “made up” holiday on April 1- I Love You Day. We also got engaged that day. It will be interesting to see how our 1 year wedding anniversary goes because other than a nicer dinner, we’ve never “celebrated” anniversaries (or V-Day). So we’ll have to talk about that.
In response to Christy – I don’t think I can reply on the mobile app to your comment. But, I got married on the 4th because my husband was in the military and I knew he’d be able to come home for 96 hours so we could get married. We had been together for 3.5 years at that point, and I had just graduated college in May, so we were ready. And with the military, it’s hard to plan way in advance. The 4th was a Saturday so that’s why we picked that day. You have to both be present to get your marriage license, and he couldn’t come in until Thursday night, and every single town office was closed Friday. I contacted every single one in the Rochester area until I found a woman who was willing to come in on her day off. We got married in a very small ceremony at my in laws’ home and then had our reception at a local restaurant. We had about 30 people in attendance and nobody declined because of the holiday. We did go to see fireworks that night. It’s an awesome anniversary because 1) my husband can’t forget it 2) we always have the day off and 3) we always have fireworks on our anniversary.
Thanks for responding! I hadn’t thought about always having the day off – that IS a perk. I’m sold. Thanks again! It sounds like a great wedding.
Thanks Christy! It was very small and intimate and relatively stress free. At the time, I thought we’d do another big ceremony years later, but now I don’t really see the point. It wouldn’t make us any more married.
As far as the whole cookouts thing – sometimes we’ll do those during the day, and then we have the evening together. If we don’t want to go to someone’s cookout, the anniversary sure is a good excuse! Last year we got a hotel room and since it was our anniversary, they put us on one of the top floors with a balcony so we got to watch the fireworks from our room. It was awesome. July 4th is a great holiday to have your anniversary because you get a lot of perks without all the negative stuff…it’s not really a holiday that overshadows your anniversary.
I love this story!
Funny enough today marks the day I met my husband 2 years ago on a blind date, which totally changed my life. I knew he was something special after the best first date of all time. We met the day after Super Bowl 2012 and he proposed the day after Super Bowl 2013 and so this year we celebrated our “milestone day” on Monday. I will always hold February 6 in my heart as the day I met the man I would marry.
Happy Engagement Anniversary! Is it bad that I remember our dating anniversary more than I remember when we got engaged? We both know it was during the weekend of our alumni spring game, but it was anywhere from April 20-25, I have no clue without a calendar or a program from the game. We started dating on 6/23/07, so every year we celebrate how we spent that day. We go back to our college town, eat too much food and drink too much, and order from this amazing cookie delivery service before we pass out lol It keeps us young!
mandalee are you a penn stater as well? I forget who on this site is. Yeh we got engaged at my college too (hopefully the same as yours) cause we’re huge nerds about our school!!!
Yes I am! I know rachel is too and I think there’s one more too. We’re everywhere! I remember your engagement story when you posted it in the forum! That’s awesome, we are too. I told my husband we have to stay married since I can’t imagine being with someone who isn’t a Penn Stater. haha
Happy Engagement Anniversary!
I’ve known Othello for more than half my life (14 years!), I’ve been dating him for 12, and we’ve been married for almost 8. And I don’t think we’ve changed one bit in that time 🙂
Also, when did I get so old?
I love celebrating little anniversaries like this. That’s why I specifically asked Nigel not to propose to me on my birthday or a holiday. It felt cliche to me (although I TOTALLY understand why a lot of people do it that way… holidays are happy and exciting and there are often a lot of expectations). My logic was that we already have something to celebrate on birthdays and holidays. So he proposed to me 3 days after my birthday, haha.
All you people with your cute and romantic first date/engagement stories. Mine is we were bored at my place and he stuck his wiener in me and it felt good.
The good news is Rachel said I could steal her story and mix in other’s so from now on, I’ll be copying down all the good ones you guys share to steal them.
It’s cool I don’t have an anniversary.
And we kinda did the same thing lol
My boyfriend made me a fancy wine rack. At least I can brag about that!
I loved reading this and everyone’s stories. Our first date and the day we got engaged are two days that definitely stick out in my mind as the most fun. We’ve been together for 5 years and married for 3 months, and we’ve grown so much together. I like that: being able to say I’ve grown with someone.
These are my favorite kinds of stories and comments to read :). My boyfriend and I decided that our beginning of our relationship date would be the 13th of December because we had be talking on facebook until the wee hours of the morning, and the last thing we decided was that we were in a relationship. So far, that’s the only date we really celebrate as an anniversary.
I am hoping my engagement anniversary date will be coming in the near future because, he told me he is just waiting until he gets into the police academy to propose. Yay! I am so thrilled, I can’t even believe it.
New Years Day was a Sunday and we were sitting on the couch reading the paper as usual. I said: Ya wanna get married this year? She said: Sure, why not. It was romantic as all get out. So here we are 20 years later retired with 5 cats. One might ask what’s that got to do with Valentines Day? I was conceived on Valentines Day, or was it night?
That’s so cute! My engagement story is somewhat similar. We were visiting his family in Vermont last summer and I fell completely in love with them (I was already in love with him) and decided that I wanted him and his family to be my family forever. So we woke up one morning (it just so happened to be our 6-month anniversary) and I told him that I’d love to go back to Vermont this summer and get married, if he was interested. He said he’d love to, but suggested we wait until the fall since the foliage would be great in photos. So now we’re getting married in Vermont in October! No fancy proposal or big wedding, just two awesome families making it legal. 🙂
We’d lived in sin for 7 years to get my finances cleaned up and had a big back yard wedding. It was a wonderful party.
We have to wait until May to live in sin because our leases aren’t up until then, but we’re having a backyard wedding as well. I like to refer to our wedding as a picnic with our families where we just so happen to get married. I’m not even going to wear white! It should be a blast.
Sounds great, pay to have to great food prepared so nobody has to more then rake the lawn and show up. 🙂