The Story of Saying “Yes!”

Howdy-hey, friends! Can you believe we’re almost halfway through 2022? Every time I look at the calendar, I get a little dizzy. I just know that I’m gonna blink and miss June altogether. But that’s life when you’re running a small business (which is really becoming a full-time job) and planning a wedding!

We’ve been engaged for almost three weeks now, and it’s been absolutely wonderful. There’s something really lovely about looking at furniture together, introducing each other to our friends and family as fiancé/ fiancée, and visiting the little town where we’ll build our new life together.

But within hours of sharing my last blog post and the story of how Casey and I fell in love and got engaged, I received a few good-humored but disappointed comments: “Waaaaaait a second, you didn’t tell us how he proposed!” For some reason, I completely forgot to tell that part of the story! My sincere apologies. Allow me to remedy this slight of mine.

Back in April, when Casey and I knew that engagement was just a matter of time, he asked me what kind of ring I would like. After a bit of giddy stammering (partly because I was so excited, partly because I’d never actually thought about it…whoops), I told him I’d do a few Google searches and figure it out. By that afternoon, I was sent him something that I really loved…something very elegant and reminiscent (we both thought) of Galadriel’s ring of power from The Lord of the Rings.

That Sunday–Easter Sunday, to be precise–Casey also asked my dad for his permission and blessing to propose to me, a request my dad heartily accepted. A few days after that, Casey told me to expect something special within the next two to three weeks.

Schedule-happy as I am, I did look at the calendar and figure out when I could reasonably expect a proposal 😉 Sure enough, by the time two weeks had passed, I knew something was up. Casey had just visited our future home for the first time and sent me an email full of pictures. After he’d given me a chance to respond with several giddy texts, he wrote me back: “All we need now is a magic ring!”

“As long as this one is blessed and not cursed!” I replied.

He answered, “Don’t worry, no Dark Lord has ever touched it.”

Ah-HAH!!! I thought. He must have it!

That conversation happened on a Tuesday. We always spend Friday mornings together, so on Thursday night, we planned what we’d do the next day. He suggested we go to Rosedown Plantation, then made some comment about how it was going to be a really wonderful day. In light of Tuesday’s conversation, I couldn’t help but think, Hmmmm…I wonder.

The next morning, I met Casey at his parents’ house. His mom wasn’t home, which I found rather unusual, but I didn’t say anything. We got into Casey’s car and headed towards Rosedown, both of us armed with travel mugs full of coffee. Or, at least, mine was full of coffee. I just assumed his was, too.

Everything seemed normal until we were almost to the plantation. Suddenly, Casey started getting tons of texts. In the six months we’ve been together, this man has NEVER stopped to answer texts on a Friday morning. He’ll just glance at his phone, then put it away and say, “I’ll reply later.” But TODAY he said, “Sorry, this is really important”–and as soon as we got to a red light he started texting back! I kept very quiet, but the wheels were turning in my head…and they kept turning when he got even more texts and kept stopping to reply.

Finally we reached the plantation. As soon I got out of the car, I thought I saw his mom’s car on the other side of the small parking lot. My heart started pounding, but again, I kept my mouth shut as Casey took my hand and led me down one of the winding, well-kept trails towards the plantation house. There were a few other tourists around, and I noticed he kept glancing this way and that.

“So,” he suddenly asked, “what’s in my travel mug?”

I blinked. I’d left my mug in the car, but he’d brought his along.

“Uhh…coffee?” I ventured.

He smiled. “Nope.”

Oh my giddy aunt, I thought.

“Acorns?” I blurted, trying to play along and not utter the more obvious possibility.

“Nope.”

“The baby’s pacifier?” (He has a baby niece.)

“Nope.”

We reached the plantation gazebo, and my breath caught at the sight of something on the bench inside: flowers, a platter…and a Baby Yoda blanket draped over the bench??? But two tourists had just walked into the gazebo and they were actually examining the set-up, and I could tell Casey was starting to panic a bit. He led me quickly towards the fountain near the gazebo.

“Run out of guesses?” he asked.

“Y-yes,” I stammered.

He opened his travel mug, and there inside lay a box. But not the box you’d imagine. It’s a beautiful little box that you have to unfold to open: the lid first, then several different folds before you get to the bottom. On each fold, Casey had written the lyrics to several different love songs well-known and loved by us both…but on the final fold were the words,

Will you marry me?

A tinier box lay at the bottom of the bigger box. By that point my hands were shaking and I could hardly speak, so Casey took the tiny box and opened it. Inside lay the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen, almost identical to the one I’d sent him weeks before as a sort of “inspiration photo.” He got down on one knee right there by the fountain and asked, “Maribeth, will you marry me?”

And I, smiling so hard that I could hardly see straight, said, “Yes, yes, yes!”

He got up and put the ring on my finger, though both our hands were shaking so badly that it took a few seconds to manage it! By that point, however, the tourist couple had figured it out: they hurried over and, in broken English and a very thick French accent, the woman asked if I wanted her to take our picture. I thanked her and let her take my phone. Unfortunately, it’s not a good picture at all: she walked so far away that the picture is extremely blurry. But it’s still a fun part of the story, and I haven’t stopped laughing about the French tourists who crashed our engagement.

So that’s the proposal story–and now we have a wedding in the works! Things may be a little wild and woolly over the next few months as I juggle work and planning, but I will do my best to keep my blog alive…even if means publishing a few blog posts on Sundays (like this one) 😉

Hope y’all have a beautiful Memorial Day tomorrow, and I’ll see you back here in a couple of weeks!