... from tomorrow, Kurt and I got engaged.
I was originally planning to do this post tomorrow (dur) but then I realized that we're going to be spending the whole day at Kurt's mom's house as soon as church is over, so I won't really have time. And I'd rather be one day early than one day late. Plus, I have more time on Saturdays for blogging.
I know one year isn't long, but it's flown by. I mean, sometimes I'm like, "Holy crap, I'm married already? I thought we were just engaged!" Of course, time has slowed down since I got a boring desk job, but that's beside the point.
So in honor of this momentous occasion (which will occur tomorrow) I'm going to retell the story of how Kurt proposed, mostly because I don't think Alisse and Punkin know. Beware, it's LONG.
Kurt and I decided to get married on January 7th. It was our first official marriage talk. We'd made subtle comments before, but that was the night we said outright that we wanted to get married and soon. Well, originally, for some reason, I thought Kurt would want to wait a while before getting married. Why I thought this, I don't know. He asked, "So when do you think we should get married?" I was thinking "As soon as possible!" but I didn't want to scare him off (what the heck?!) and said, "April next year, Christmas, or August." He looked confused, and so I asked him when he thought. "This June!!" he replied emphatically. I was glad to hear that.
We thought August would be a good time. I called my parents; they said August would be great. A week later we called the South Carolina temple and made an appointment for August 18. Certain events transpired over the next few days that made Kurt and I realize that we REALLY wanted to get married sooner, say in May. At first, my parents said no, but after a while they said it would be ok. We were stoked.
Meanwhile, two days after Kurt and I talked about marriage, I went ring shopping, two days in a row. I was sitting in my living room, trying to talk myself out of it. "It's too soon!" I said, but then the next thing I knew I was driving in the snow towards the nearest non-mall jewelry store. Over the course of 2 days I went to the 4 main stores in Provo for engagement rings. I went from having no idea to what kind of ring I wanted, to having a pretty good idea. I found
my ring and fell in love with it immediately. When Kurt and I went shopping a few days later I narrowed it down to that ring, and two others which were similar (round diamond, pave, tapered band, bezel set).
I thought Kurt had a budget between $2000 and $3000. I don't know why I thought this... but I firmly believed it. If you clicked on the link for my ring, you see that it originally sells at close to $8000. The reasons are: it's platinum, it's set for a 2 kt diamond, and it's a
designer ring. The other 2 rings I had picked out were between $1000 and $2000 for the settings. Talking to the store owner, we realized that remaking the ring in white gold, for a much smaller stone, and taking out some of the pave, could get it under $3000. I told Kurt, "Just get me a cubic, like the size of a 1/2 kt diamond. I just care about having a gorgeous setting that I love. If you want, we can get a real diamond for our 10th wedding anniversary or something like that."
Just before Christmas, Kurt and I had booked flights to go to Charleston so he could meet my family. That was for Feb 15th - Feb 19th. Throughout January and the beginning of February, I'd periodically remind Kurt that he needed to go ring shopping. I'd go to work, and then come home and ask him how'd it gone. "It was good, but I didn't buy anything," he'd say. At this comment, I'd always think, "We're never gonna get engaged!!! We're getting married in 4 months and we're nowhere close to getting engaged!"
One day before the trip, I decided to stop in at this small jeweler on the way home from campus, Payne Diamonds. I went in there and a salesman started talking to me about rings. I was originally looking at men's wedding bands, but we started talking about my ring. "Well," I said, "I've given my fiancé three choices so he can pick, and they're all similar, but my favorite one is a Michael B. design." I described it to him, at which point he picked up a piece of paper from his desk with a picture of my ring. "Like this one?" he asked. "Yeah!! That's it!" I looked at the paper and noticed some handwriting on it. "Hey, can I see that? That hand writing looks like my fiancé's..." The salesman snatched the picture away quickly and made up something about how that was the manager's handwriting and that this couple wanted to put a Euro-shank on the ring (which I thought was a
complete waste). I went on my merry way, none the wiser.
(Turns out that was Kurt's paper and handwriting, and that the salesman had covered quickly for him. He called Kurt right after that apparently and told him I had been there. Lol. Too bad Kurt ended up getting the ring made elsewhere.)
Soon we were leaving for Charleston!! I was so excited, as always, to see my family and my beloved Holy City (so named because of the many churches downtown), but even more excited for Kurt to meet my family and my beloved Holy City. Thursday night we flew in and Friday we took engagement pictures with my amazing photographer and long-time family friend, Grant. I had been joking around (but still serious) with Kurt the week before, saying how we were gonna have to hide my left hand in all the pics so it wasn't obvious that we weren't officially engaged yet. The light was fading quickly, and my mom didn't like our outfits (they were too casual) so we decided to take pictures on Sunday too, in nicer clothes. (Plus, apparently Kurt had told Grant that he was proposing on Saturday night and that on Sunday we'd have the ring, so not to take Friday's pictures too seriously. Still, we got some good ones.)
On Saturday came the big day--the infamous talk with my dad for Kurt. Plus, meeting my dad (who was working 2 hours away and so stayed at his brother's during the week). On the way home from my little brother's soccer game (which was about 45 minutes away) Kurt and my dad got to talk about Kurt, my dad, and marrying and loving me, while my mom and I discussed wedding ideas. When we got home, my dad had an announcement.
"Well, guys, we decided to surprise y'all so we made some dinner reservations for y'all at
Rue de Jean tonight."
"Dad, that's awesome! Thank you so much!" Then I thought about it, "Wait... why aren't y'all coming?"
"Well, uhhh," my dad fumbled around for a bit. "They didn't have any 4-person reservations available since
SEWE's in town."
"Oh," I said, appeased. That made sense. (Kurt had been on the phone with my family all week planning the night out and they had been trying to find a reservation all week--SEWE really did eat up a lot of reservations!)
That night Kurt and I headed downtown for dinner. I was driving (of course, Kurt didn't know his way around) and on the way to dinner, he said, "What if after dinner we went walking somewhere?"
"Sure!" I said. "Where do you wanna go? There's the beach, or Waterfront Park, or the Battery, or we could walk on the new Cooper River bridge."
"The bridge would be great," he agreed, "but it's really windy tonight." The Cooper River bridge is a very high bridge over one of the rivers feeding into Charleston Harbor and so a windy night on the bridge would be miserable.
"Yeah, you're right. Let's go to the beach, then."
Dinner was amazing. I mean, wow. It was so good. I recommend the potato bisque and lamb for appetizers. I've never had soup like that before. After our entrees, and waiting for our dessert, our waitress brought over a vase full of 2 dozen red roses. They were beautiful! (Apparently my parents had dropped them off.) At this point I thought, "I wonder if Kurt's proposing tonight? But he could just be doing this because he's met my family and to be sweet. I won't get my hopes up." After dessert, our waitress came up to us.
"I talked to our manager and he said that since it's such a wonderful occasion, we'd love to offer y'all 2 complimentary glasses of champagne."
We declined, but I was confused. "Why are they offering us champagne?" I asked. Kurt said he had told her how we were going to be getting married in May. (Turns out he had told her earlier that my parents were bringing by flowers and that he was proposing that night.)
Full and happy, we headed over to the beach. After walking for a bit, we found a good place to put down our blankets. We sat on the blankets, looking up at the sky (it was an amazing night, not windy on the beach or cold at all!), and talking. Kurt kinda kneeled in front of me and kissed me, at which point I noticed him rifling through his inside jacket pockets. This was it! He kneeled down and opened the box and asked me to marry him. Of course I said yes (duh) and when he put the ring on my finger he said that it was just a temporary setting, and that the ring wasn't done getting made yet.
When we left the beach later, I ran into a nearby hotel to use the bathroom real quick. As I was finally in the light, I looked at the ring. I inspected the gem, and thought, "This is really sparkly for a cubic... and why would they put a cubic in a temporary setting? I guess he just wanted to propose while we were in Charleston" (which I was really glad about).
I came out of the bathroom and joined Kurt again. "Is it sparkly enough?" he asked.
"Oh yeah! Of course it is!" I thought for a second. "How big is it?"
"1.6 karats," he replied, which almost made me choke on my own tongue.
"1.6 karats?! Kurt, when are we ever gonna be able to afford the real diamond??"
"Kristina," he said, almost laughing, "that is the real diamond!!"
I was shocked, surprised, and very, very pleased. The next day after church we took our real engagement pictures and my parents had an engagement party for our family and friends. While we were there, people kept asking what the real ring would look like. I started to describe the Michael B. design, but then I asked Kurt, "Wait, is that the one you got?"
"It's a surprise," he replied. "You'll find out next Saturday."
Next Saturday, on the way up to Salt Lake to see my brother, Ryan, we stopped at
Sierra West Jewelers to pick up my ring. When we got in and asked for it, the lady went back to the ring-maker, then came back empty-handed. "He's taking pictures of it for his portfolio." A lady next to me said something about how that must mean it was really beautiful. I could barely contain my excitement. When I saw the ring, I shrieked with joy. Literally. The other rings I had picked out were very beautiful, but this one was by far my favorite. All the people in the store looked at me like I'm crazy (which happens a lot, so I'm used to it). I now had the ring ...
... AND the man of my dreams! :D
Now, here are some engagement pictures. The first few, with Kurt in the yellow polo, are from Friday. The other ones are from Sunday.
Wow, that's a lot of pictures. And here's the thing, there's more that we liked. But those are the only ones of my computer. :D Maybe next year I'll do the rest.
