5 years ago today I woke up thinking, “I have a ring and I have permission, what am I waiting for?” I wanted to get married in the summer, and I knew if we were going to do it that summer, we needed to get engaged soon.
The ring was my great-aunt’s late husband’s mother’s wedding diamond. My aunt Shirley had told me I could use it when I got engaged and have it put in a different setting. I didn’t realize until I picked it up from her that her husband had it put in a different setting so that he could wear it. I knew when I got engaged that Brittney hadn’t said “yes” just because she liked the ring, it was way too big for her tiny fingers. Incidentally, when I went to dinner with Aunt Shirley to pick up the ring, she told the waitress we were celebrating an engagement. I was so embarrassed when the waitress looked at us quizzically and asked, “The two of you got engaged?” I’m sure Aunt Shirley was delighted to think she looked young enough to be engaged to a man young enough to be her grandson.
The permission I got from my future father-in-law the day after I met him. I went with Brittney to her brother, Otto’s high school graduation. We arrived Friday night and Saturday morning, Brittney’s dad said, “Why don’t you take a shower and then we’ll go on a walk.” On our walk, he asked me what my intentions were. I told him I like Brittney a lot and if she would ever consent to it, I would like to marry her. Then I asked him if I had permission when that time came. He told me I was supposed to ask for her hand, and he would say I could have her hand, but he got to keep the rest of her. In the end he told me I had his permission, but that if I ever mistreated her…
Even though I had a ring and permission, I wasn’t sure what Brittney would say if I asked her to marry me, so I mulled it over throughout the morning. I talked to my mom and my sister, Rachel on the phone. Rachel actually told me not to get engaged anytime soon because then she would be the oldest, unmarried child and everyone would be asking her when she was going to get married. (Two brothers and a sister between Rachel and I in age were already married. Rachel isn’t married yet, she just returned from serving in the Lithuania mission and as far as I know hasn’t been asked when she is going to get married).
I decided to surprise Brittney with a bouquet of flowers at work and ask her to go to dinner with me that night. Her favorite flowers are petunias, so I figured I’d get her a dozen petunias. Unfortunately, they don’t sell bouquets of petunias, so I got a tray of starter plants, took them home and made my own bouquet of petunias and put them in a blue vase I bought at the flower store. (If you have never seen “The Blue Vase, the Quest for the Go-getter with Integrity” come over and we’ll watch it sometime, it’s one of my all time favorite movies.)
When I showed up at the library where Brittney worked with the flowers, they told me she had left work early. I ended up calling her and asking her to go to dinner with me and gave her the flowers when I picked her up. When I got home from work, there was a letter for me from one of Brittney’s roommates, Bonnie, who got engaged two weeks before. She had actually written a letter of recommendation for Brittney telling me what a wonderful person Brittney is and why I should marry her. I took it as a sign and decided I was going to ask Brittney to marry me that night.
We had dinner at the Bluebird Restaurant in Logan, Utah. They have good food there, though I can’t remember what I ate that night or if it tasted good. After dinner I drove Brittney to the bottom of Old Main Hill and told her I wanted to show her something. As we walked up the steps of Old Main I asked her if she had ever played “Capture the Flag” there. She hadn’t. I told her I had and that I’m slow, so I was in prison most the time when I played. I showed her the base of a large tree that served as the prison. I told her while sitting there I noticed that there was a great view of the Logan Temple from there, as Brittney admired the view of the temple I got down on one knee and continued, “I decided that this is where I wanted to get engaged…so, Brittney, will you marry me?” I had pulled the ring out and was holding it up. Brittney responded, “Only if it is for eternity”. I said, “Of course.” Then I said, “OK, let’s sit down and talk about this.” I needed to sit for a while, I was shaking like crazy and I had only planned up to the words “Will you marry me?” because I had no idea how she was going to respond!
We went to my office to look at a calendar and decided we wanted to get married August 19. I told Brittney we could exchange the ring I proposed with for another one if she wanted. She thought that was a good idea, so we went to a jeweler from my office. The jeweler said they would give her a fake ring to wear until the one she picked out was finished, but the fake ring couldn’t be picked up until the next day, so we decided to only tell our parents that night. We used a hidden spare key I knew about to use the phone in my institute teacher’s office to call our parents so that our roommates wouldn’t over hear us calling. Brittney’s mom and sister were so excited, they started jumping up and down and whooping.
We asked my roommate to take a picture of us and the flowers, not telling him why. As you can see from our expressions, we were both a little dazed, but very happy.
