Scrapbook Romance

"Romance" is a big word in our household. I remind G. pretty often that romance is very important. Also, I like to find romance in whatever we do. So if we're filling up the tank, we're having "gas romance." If we're going food shopping, we're having "Pathmark romance."

Usually I am the half of the couple who reminds us when we need romance. I think that it is possible that this concept is a hair more important to me than it is to him. Nevertheless, when G. comes through, he comes through. This past Valentine's Day was major romance with respect to his gift to me.

He gave me a scrapbook! Perhaps this doesn't immediately scream romance to you? The idea, he explained in his card, was that we would document our next year together. Scrapbook romance!

You may remember that we got engaged the day after Valentine's Day. This is definitely a "first day of the rest of your life" kind of day, so documenting the rest of the year after that seemed totally awesome to me. I became even more super excited about scrapbook romance, because it was combined now with engagement romance, which is probably in the top 3 of the best kinds there are.

I am new to scrapbooking. It is not a "thing" here in NYC the way it is in some other places. We have Michael's, but I have heard that in California, for instance, there are entire stores devoted to scrapbooking. I don't really know about this stuff so mine is pretty ham-handed compared to what's out there. That's ok, though.

This is the first page of the scrapbook, from the day we got engaged. There are the two receipts from the entry to the Met, where we got engaged. There is a receipt from the bagel breakfast we had that morning, so I can always remember that I pigged out on bagels with cream cheese and chocolate milk the morning before we got engaged. Then there is the tag you wear on your lapel when you pay for entry to the Met. I also threw in a weird picture that G. found inside a book at the Met book store. It doesn't have anything to do with us, I just thought it was weird and funny. Last are some puffy hearts that I bought on sale at Papyrus. Then I typed out the date in a cool font I found on dafont.com and presto! First foray into scrapbooking.

(G. likes totally normal fonts and nothing wacky at all, so we'll probably be doing our invitations in Times New Roman. Sigh. So seeing as the scrapbook belongs to me, I am trying out fonts all over the place.)
Here, I got a little more creative with layout. On the left side is some stuff from our 10 year college reunion, which was this past June. (G. and I went to the same small college, and graduated the same year, but we didn't know each other. We met six years after we graduated.)

On the right is a collage of stuff from our very good friends' wedding, which was a week ago. I included their invitation, our escort cards, G.'s groomsman speech (handwritten) and a polaroid that someone took of us at the brunch the next day.

I love scrapbook romance, and I love how creative this gift is. Message to dudes who read Weddingbee and are thinking of proposing (and I am sure there are lots of you): do this! Scrapbook romance. The best gift ever!

Did you get a great "extra" with your engagement?

"OMG I'm sweating!"-- the engagement

Ok, so I knew we were going to get engaged. And that it would probably be soon, since I had told G. that I wanted to get engaged, plan and have the wedding within 2009.

One day, I was reading Lucky magazine, and saw this ring that I totally loved, but of course couldn't afford.
So I thought, oh, hey, I am probably getting engaged soon. Maybe I could have it as an engagement ring! I went back and forth a little in my head, and later that afternoon sent G. an email with a link to the ring. I was totally panicked about it, but did it anyway.

Well, turns out people do do that. My friend E. (who's doing the reading) told me she gave her husband "major specs" regarding her ring of choice before they got engaged. That made me feel a lot better.

A week later, G. and I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We were looking at an exhibit about love and sex in the Renaissance (which, by the way, was totally dirty). G. asked me whether I wanted that particular ring, or something like it. I told him if he wanted to choose a different ring, he could choose one himself, but I wanted him to know he could think-outside-the-solitaire-box, so to speak. Or, he could just buy that one. So! There it was!

The week before Valentine's day, he was like, "Let's go to the Met on the 15th." We have dates at the Met a lot. However, he never suggests anything a week in advance, especially not stuff that requires no advance planning. So all of a sudden I had a little buzz in my ear. I suspected he was going to propose.

I knew he wouldn't do it on Valentine's day, because he is just not a proposing on Valentine's day kind of guy. However, on the 14th, he gave me a scrapbook to fill with mementos of stuff we would do together over the next year.

Huh.

The day after Valentine's, I was all aflutter. I kind of thought this was it. I put on a snappy green sweater and lipgloss.

We went to the museum, and it was a madhouse. It was like a concert had just let out, there were masses of people everywhere. It was kind of making us cranky, and we couldn't get focused on anything we wanted to look at.

We ended up in the Art of Cyprus, which I had never looked at before in all my times at the Met. Now I know why: it's boring! I wanted to move on, so I walked out of the exhibit and G. followed.* We stopped on the balcony that overlooks the main entrance, and I took this picture of the flowers, which were beautiful that day.


Then we went into Chinese Art of the 5th century, which is my favorite room at the Met. There is a huge, ginormous buddha and an awesome mural. It was oddly empty in the room. We were chatting, and I was looking at the buddha, and I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around, and he was holding the Lucky ring, and whispered in my ear, "Will you marry me?"

All I remember of the next few moments are that I started grabbing at the ring, was reminded that I hadn't replied, replied yes, and then starting sweating like you wouldn't believe. I ripped off my coat and scarf and fanned myself. Then we kissed, were excited, you know.

We tried to walk around some more, but it was futile. I was in a total daze. We went outside to Central Park and bought a blue Gatorade and took a picture.

Then we got on the phone. The best part was that my parents were at a funeral that day, which started at 3:00, just the time when we got engaged. I couldn't get them on the phone till 8:00 p.m.! G. had talked to his whole family and all his friends before I even got my folks on the phone. It didn't seem right to talk to a bunch of people before my parents, so they only person I called was A.T., my MOH.

Then we wandered through the park, and through midtown. We went to the Parker Meridien hotel and had an outrageously expensive glass of wine (I saved the coaster for our scrapbook). We went home, walked the dog, and had dinner at our favorite restaurant. Aces!

*Turns out he though of proposing in the Art of Cyprus, but I kept walking away. I am glad he didn't!

"I prefer a more accelerated schedule" -- The pre-engagement

G. and I had been together for three years, and we were both over 30. Not that that matters, but it kinda did to me (much as I hate to admit it). After about two years, I was ready to get engaged, but I could see that he wasn't. Not because he didn't love me, we had for sure made the committment to each other; we had long-term-planning talks all the time. I knew he needed to work out some stuff in his head first, though.

Last summer, we went to Europe. One night in England, after about three dozen pints, I had a totally embarrassing meltdown while walking home from the pub. I don't remember what I said, but I think it was something along the lines of "Why haven't we gotten engaged yet, what the hell is going on, this is driving me nuts, blah blah blah" with some extra special drunken melodrama thrown in.

Believe you me, I never wanted to get to that point. And when I was sober, I didn't actually feel so desperate about the whole situation at all.

He responded with something like, "This isn't what I signed up for when we agreed to go on this vacation, so cool it."

The next day, the next two days, the next week, I felt terrible. He told me not to worry about it, but I totally did. I was so ashamed and just really felt pathetic. I left it alone after that.

Six months later, we had our three month anniversary. We went to River Cafe, which is this super fancy, super expensive restaurant that we can't by any stretch of the imagination afford.

River Cafe night is when we usually have big talks. It was at our one-year anniversary at River Cafe when G. first said, "Say, we should get married at some point."

So this time, our third, he proposed.

A schedule.

He was like, "Let's get engaged in 2009, and married in 2010." The wine was flowing, I was wearing sequins, things were good. So I was all, "Sure! Sounds great!" Clink of the glasses. A discussion of the ring, and our future babies' names (seriously).*

The next morning, I reconsidered. I tap tap tapped him on the shoulder the moment I woke up:

"I prefer a more accelerated schedule with the getting engaged thing. How about, get engaged in 2009, married in 2009. We've been together three years, enough is enough. Let's get 'er done."

He was like, "OK, sounds good."

So then I just had to wait. Oh yeah, and deal with the ring thing (more on that, soon!).

*He totally forgot the baby-name discussion. He now has no memory of it!