As some of you might have figured out by now, (or not) Matthew and I are engaged He proposed Saturday the 11th of October. I did not see it coming. We have been talking about getting married for a while now, but as to actually getting engaged, we did not know when would be the right time. We figured it would probably be some time, but I guess he just got tired of waiting
So, to begin our story...
Matthew and I met in January of 2007. We had elected to take the same course at UAH for a chance to travel abroad to India during the summer. He was singled out by our prof, Bhavani, because his schedule was going to be unique. Being that Matthew is a council member of Scottsboro, AL, he would be leaving half-way through the class time so he could make the council meeting every Monday.
Every Monday, I would sit outside the classroom waiting for the previous class to dismiss. Being comfortably situated on the floor, I usually sat there until at least one or two other students went into the classroom. Matthew was usually the first. We never talked, just went to our seats.
Early in the semester I had gone to the Hindu temple in Nashville with our prof and a few other students to experience the religion and write a paper on what we experienced (others chose to do other options like watch a Bollywood film or interview an Indian person). When the few of us who went were discussing it before our next class, Matthew mentioned that he would like to get up there at least once before we headed to India to witness the worship ceremony and practices.
In March I informed him that I would be going to Nashville, TN for an Anime convention (yes, I know, what a dork am I ) and intended visiting the temple with a friend of mine that was visiting. I made plans with him to meet in Nashville, TN on the last day of MTAC. He brought up a friend of his (female, I thought they were dating at first, soon figured out they were not by their lack of romantic vibe). We had a wonderful day up there and got along fantastically.
In April, our prof decided to have the 5 students who had chosen to take the optional trip to India over at her house for dinner for some Indian cuisine. Before the dinner, Matthew called and asked if I would like to meet him at Big Spring Park, just a few blocks from our prof's house before dinner. He was in Huntsville for a meeting and had really nothing else to do for a few hours. I gladly met him there and we walked around talking. He was excited that I came because, Matthew likes making new friends and learning about people; I was excited because the cute boy asked me After dinner, the group played a few games to get to know each other. Matthew, our friend Carie, and I were put on the same team. The game was Knowledge, the task was charades, the act was quadruple by-pass surgery. It was Matthew's turn and we had to guess it before the other team and their actress did. Somehow it took me all of 3 seconds to figure it out.
Carie and I had been having trouble getting our visas through on time, so Matthew drove to Houston, TX with us one weekend to get our visas. Again, we had a blast. I laughed so hard several times that I cried. By the time we left for India, we felt like we had been friends for awhile. Our tickets on all the planes going over placed us next to each other. On the way back, we sat next to each other on 2 of the 3 planes.
In India, Matthew was ever watchful of me. See, I have a tendency to stop unannounced (and usually unnoticed) and start taking photos when I'm sight-seeing. Matthew kept an eye on me and made sure they never go too far ahead before he would come back for me. By the time we left India we had a special bond. Over the summer, we got to know each other more closely. He had classes during the week and afterwords, would come over to our house for a few hours. In June, after much confusion, we officially became a couple. For our first date he took me on a day trip to Atlanta to meet his sister, brother-in-law and nephew. We had a nice lunch with Adriana & Elliot, then proceeded alone to the Georgia Aquarium for most the day. Afterwords, he surprised me by taking me to the Fox Theater to see Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. It's one of my favorite movies, and this was the Broadway production of it. He had remembered from a random conversation in India that I had said it was among my favorites. The rest, as they say, is history... until now.
Fall break was October 9th. The Wednesday before, just after my classes, we drove to Birmingham to stay with his two friends, Scad & Hasty, for a couple of days. We didn't see much of the city, just ate at a few inexpensive restaurants, and went to a bar with Hasty. Friday around noon we headed to Atlanta to stay with Adriana & Elliot.
The next day was Saturday, the day we had been looking forward to for several weeks. First on the agenda was a play, followed by dinner. The play we were seeing was at the Fox Theater. This time we saw Wicked. I had been wanting to see this play for some time and we both love going to the theater. It's special to us as the place we had our first date. As we were leaving he just blurted out "Marry me Dana." I was confused, I will admit. He had always said that whenever he asked it would be for real and not just "hey let's get married." He pulled me to the side and said that there were a lot of things he wanted to say but that it all came down to the fact that he loved me and wanted to be with me forever. I was still confused. We were talking about the play just a moment ago. I was kind of wondering if it was for real since I didn't expect to have bought a ring. That's when he pulled it from his jacket pocket and started to get down on one knee. He knows I don't like public spaces much, so I pulled him up by the collar of his jacket with both my hands. Don't worry, he said he did touch his knee to the ground, he was determined to. Anyway, both our hands were shaking as he put the ring on my finger. Shaking out of excitement, not nervousness.
The rest of the evening was spent talking about being engaged and the future. I found out that my parents even knew he was going to ask me and they never let on. We had dinner at The Sun Dial in the Westin. Not a restaurant to eat at often or you'll go broke, but it was a special occasion and he wanted to go all out. We were there about 45 minutes when we realized we hadn't talked about the play at all since he proposed. And just before the play I had said that going to dinner after the play, as opposed to before, would give us something to talk about over dinner (that's what we call irony). All in all, I said yes, and we've been on cloud 9 since.
