A big part of my moving to London (and when I say big part, I mean all of it) was to be with Jules, my girlfriend of then 2 years. I knew if things were good then I would ask her to marry me. Well, things turned out good, are still good, and as of December 13th, we are officially engaged!
The ball started rolling on December 1st when Jules met me at Victoria station after work. I gave her a little silver box, resembling a little like a ring box, with a chocoloate and a note inside. The note read that I would be giving her something sweet everyday from now until Christmas, just to tie her over before she can open her Christmas gifts.
So everyday she had a little box waiting for her, with a little note in it and sometimes even a present to go with it. The plan was let get her to expect these boxes and not to think that they were setting up for something big. She later confessed that she felt a little nervous watching me casually pull out a ring-boxish box the first time, but thought "naw, he can't be proposing to me in the middle of a station. Especially not since he pracitically tossed the box at me!". Perfect, my plan was working.
Twelve days had gone by, and twelve boxes had been opened. On Saturday, December 13th, I made sure the day went on as normal. We went to the mall together, she started work, and I went to my Jiu Jitsu class. Except this time, I went after class to get a haircut and some flowers. I got home and told her parents of my intensions and got their blessings. I cleaned up her room, piled up twelve boxes on her bed, and even got changed into a nice shirt and sweater.
I mean I HAD to get changed, really. I don't care what you say, but proposing in my ThunderCats t-shirt would NOT be a good idea.
9pm rolled around and I went to pick her up from work. We went to a pub to get some dinner, and when we got home, she quickly dashed upstairs to speak to her folks without even glancing at her room.
I waited patiently downstairs for her to finish her chat with her mum.
What I didn't count on was that the X-Factor finale was on at the same time. For those who don't know the X-Factor show, it's American Idol but better. Leona Lewis was discovered through the series a couple years back and this year's winner, Alexandra Burke, gave an emotional performance of Leonard Cohan's "Hallelujah" to win this year's crown. Simon Cowell is also a judge on this show; go figure that Simon Cowell is to blame for any mishaps of my perfectly planned proposal.
Jules watched the final moments of the show with her mum upstairs, even shouted down "Ant, X-Factor is on!"
Who cares?! I'm about to ask you to marry me!!!!!!!!
After a long while, I couldn't take it any longer. I marched upstairs, dragged my poor unsuspecting soon-to-be finacee down to her room to the twelve boxes that I had set up.
I also had left her camera in front of the boxes with a video for instructions...
She started cracking open the boxes after watching the video, at first not suspecting much. But as she opened more boxes to pieced together more letters, her spidersense went tingling. Why are the letters coming together like it's spelling "Will You Marry Me?" Why is the room exceptionally clean? Why are there roses beside the bed? Wait, why is he in a smart sweater? Wasn't he in his ThunderCats shirt this afternoon?
After she had opened all the boxes and pieced together the message, I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me.
Am I ever glad she said "yes"... or that would have been embarssing. :P
