Engagement Story

It was 10 years ago today Chris and I were engaged. Unfortunately there are hardly any photos from that day, but the story is still pretty vivid.
We had planned to spend Labor Day weekend in New York City. We were flying out of O'Hare so we stayed with a couple friends (Tom and Mel). There was a little speculation among my friends that maybe this would perhaps we would get engaged on the trip.  I didn't want to get my hopes up.

The morning of our flight, we were enjoying breakfast at friend's apartment and Chris was acting strange, coming and going from the table. Then he had Tom joining him. I'm sure Mel was having a hard time figuring out what to say to make that not seem strange. Apparently Chris had the ring box tucked into the suitcase that I had packed. That morning, I had repacked and never came across the box, but he assumed that I had because he couldn't find it. He had grand plans to propose the following night since we had reservations for a romantic dinner, theatre tickets, etc., but in his desperation, he asked me "Do you have it?". I said "What?" He said, "You know what!" In that moment, I did know what.
We were minutes from having to leave for the airport so we all began looking together. I'm so glad I wasn't the one to find it since that would have been a pretty anti-climatic way to first see your engagement ring. Chris found it, still in the suitcase. He put it in his coat pocket and wouldn't let me see it. He didn't want to even talk about it because he was so frustrated. That was impossible as all the way there, on the plane, etc, all I wanted was to see the ring and get on with being engaged. :)
When we arrived at our hotel, the HiltonTimes Square, they had overbooked and moved us to the Paramount Hotel for the first night. It was a very cool and contemporary place to stay.

Once we were settled, we decided to get a bite to eat on our way to Central Park for a carriage ride. We ended up at Old Castle Pub. It was ironically not very Irish and also not very romantic for our engagement dinner, but that's the story :).
After dinner, we went down for our carriage ride. Chris asked me to marry him and the only photos we have are one that we took of ourselves and one the driver took (which is presently MIA).

Remember this was before digital cameras, previewing and retaking.

I remember feeling as though it was just about us since we were in a place where no one knew us or cared what we were doing...so different from being in our small hometowns. We walked back to our hotel, stopping to pick up a bottle of champagne, toasted and called my parents.

I may not exactly have been 21 so of course I took a picture of this champagne in our cool room

The rest of the weekend trip went as scheduled. The following night we saw Chicago featuring Brooke Shields as Roxy and dined at One if by Land, Two if by Sea (which was super romantic). That's the story!