He said, She said …

He said:

When I finally decided that I wanted to ask Len to marry me, the biggest question that I faced was how I was going to do it. I thought that it would be fun to surprise her because my previous surprises had gone so well (sarcasm). Also, since it was her golden birthday this year, a special birthday present would be nice and memorable. The other issue I faced was the pressure of my friends before me. Some of them had really elaborate proposals – one even stopped traffic on Michigan Avenue! – so I needed to come up with something unique, and that she would appreciate.

Fortunately, or unfortunately for me, her birthday happens to fall on “Black Friday” this year. Rather than having to deal with all of the extra stuff going on, I decided I would do it on a different day, partly because she would probably expect something on her birthday. The “point of no return”, the moment in which I would either go through with my plans, or stop them, was set at my birthday – October 3rd.

In the meantime, my friend Hazel brainstormed proposal ideas with me, and we finally settled on a proposal involving food photography, since Len was possibly interested in pursuing that particular field. The problem was in finding a bakery that would allow me to carry this out.

I asked a few friends who had siblings or knew people in the cooking and hospitality industry. Either it was either too expensive or unfeasible to carry out, or just too far away. Finally, my co-worker Kris mentioned a nice family-owned bakery in downtown Evanston. She provided me all of their information: their address, phone number, web-site, www.bennisonscakes.com– even the owner’s name. I had a potential proposal site, but I was missing one more important thing: the ring.

The ring needed to be a few things. First it needed to be something she would like – meaning it had to be nice, slightly uncommon, not overly-gaudy or flashy, and slightly contemporary but classic at the same time. The other piece of advice given to me was that I spend within my means. The final goal was to find something that matched both criteria. The ring that I settled on was designed with elements from two separate designs (www.bluenile.com & www.jamesallen.com) that caught my eye. The cut that I decided upon was an oval cut. The stone is fairly hard to find – it took the ring place over two weeks to find a suitable stone! Jervan (long story) and Marvin did an awesome job of finding the stone and incorporating the design elements into what became Len’s ring. This is the finished product.

 

cross-pronged band with oval diamond

Once the ring was finished, at the beginning of November, it started to burn a hole in my pocket. I was tempted many times to give her the ring but needed to stick to the plans. So… the next step was to ask both my parents and hers. I was nervous my parents wouldn’t believe me (because of my goofball attitude) but they were very supportive and, in some ways expected it. In order to ask her father, I needed to get her out of the house. Marizza, who incidentally introduced us years ago, did a great job of allowing me the time to do so. With the ring in tow, and the consent of our parents,  ”all I needed to do, was ask her.”

When I called Bennison’s Bakery to help me out, I was worried they would say no. Luckily, the girl I talked to, Becca, was totally psyched about my idea, and pitched it to her boss. The goal was to have Len take food photos for her portfolio, and to ask her to marry me with a cake that she would be photographing. Unfortunately, the day that I had planned to ask, Becca was not working. She regretted this, partly because she wanted to be a part of it, but was able to get her co-worker Mariah to help me. Mariah’s job was to occupy Len with her food photography so that I could slip into the bakery.

“But how do I present her the ring?” The cake room has a window looking out upon the street. Mariah offered to position Len so that she would be shooting the cake, and facing the window at the same time. As she would shoot the cake, she would read the note, and then see me in the window. As Len composed the shot, she read the cake which read “Patnah, will you marry me?Love, Ron”. Upon re-reading the cake, she freaked out, and looked up to see me in the window with my ear to ear grin, ring in hand.

I came into the cake room with Len crumpled to the ground in disbelief, saving me the whole “on bended knee” pose. She started punching me and exclaiming “I can’t believe it!” After lightly yelling at Mariah for being in on it, she accepted my request, and I was able to surprise her with my proposal. Mariah was great at helping me bridge the events of the photo shoot to the actual proposal, and deserves all the credit in the world.

So…that is how I proposed to my (dance) patnah. I couldn’t have done it without the help of all of my friends. Thanks guys! You’re the best!

She said:

He asked; I said yea.

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