The Story of Us Part 3: How He Asked

Six months, Alex and I have been engaged for six months today! It's a perfect time to share how he asked me to marry him. This is the last in my three part series about our story from how Alex and I met to the proposal. Here are the links for Part 1: How We Met and Part 2: From Dates to I Love You.

After I said, "I love you," Alex and I began talking marriage and even possible timelines. I had made a strong decision that Alex couldn't/shouldn't propose 'til after Christmas. It seemed "too soon" or that we were moving "too fast"; we needed to wait. At the time we had only known each other three months. Even though I knew he asked my father for his blessing in September. Even when we had made plans to visit Nova Scotia and work out wedding details in October. I was holding on to theidea that we had to wait at least six months...

Only as our trip approached my heart was changing. I began to hope he'd ask while we were in NS. I confessed to friends but didn't say anything to Alex because I had been so firm and committed to the proposal after Christmas. Then, Thanksgiving weekend we began looking at rings together. It was fun but he kept saying it wouldn't be possible to buy a ring 'til after Christmas. So I gave up on the dream and yet still wanted and hoped he would ask during the trip.

This lead to a silly conversation with Alex about how I would just show him all my favourite places in Nova Scotia that would have made good proposal locations. He suggested he could give me a ring pop at each location. It became an on going joke that the week before we left Alex bought a bag of ring pops while we were out.

October 25, we started our trip at 1:00 am Friday morning with the goal of Best Friend's place in NB. It was a great. We chatted, listened to The Hobbit, shared the driving, and watched the sunrise. We made it to New Brunswick mid morning. I insisted we stop at the welcome center to take a "we're in New Brunswick" selfie. Cause that's what you do. Also it was Alex's first time visiting the province. Only it was closed and there was nothing outside that worked (NB tourist office please take notes from NS they have the perfect outdoor solution). I quickly thought of a perfect alternative site that would be iconic NB -the covered bridge in Hartland.

I didn't tell him why we were making the detour to Hartland, just that it would be a great place for a first time to NB. Then I called Best Friend to let her know of the day. I didn't know but that call sped up Alex's timeline. He realized I would want to share with Steph the good news in person and that he should ask before we arrived at her place. The question for him was "how can I find a romantic place while we drive?"

While we drove he shared his love of bridges, especially covered bridges. Which made me happy to surprise him with the world's longest covered bridge. It was much fun when we arrived. The tourist shop was closed but we still had fun. We took some pictures and walked around. As we made our way back to the car Alex asked, "is this a ring pop moment?" I said "sure." We stopped at the car to get the ring pop. And this is were I should have clued in...I didn't. I had helped pack the car. I knew the bag of ring pops was in the trunk. Alex was looking in the front. I did not notice.

We walked onto the bridge and Alex began with the sweetest comments. And then he handed me a box, a long cardboard box. And continued to talk. This is when my lovely ADHD brain stopped listening and focused on the box. My first thought was "this is not a ring pop" and the next "but it's not a ring box." I was so very confused. I was starting to wonder if it was a necklace or a watch. Then he uncovered the logo. I knew it. Here's when I have to remind you, Alex and I met at comic con. We are geeks. Our first date was a game convention were we played Dungeons and Dragons. It was the Wyrmwood logo. They handcraft the most beautiful dice and game accessories.

Alex revealed a lovely handcrafted dice vault. Inside was a set of beautiful gemstone dice. Dice I have dreamed of owning (turns out I am a dice goblin), and under the D20 (twenty sided dice, the most common/important die in D&D) was the ring. I was happily stunned. I don't remember anything for the next few moments. I don't remember Alex getting down on one knee. He keeps telling me he did. I remember him asking me if I wanted him to put it on my finger. I nodded or said yes. There were hugs and kisses.

As we walked off the bridge he whispered, "You still haven't actually answered my question, will you marry me?" To which I yelled at the top of my lungs for all of Hartland to hear, "YES, YES I WILL MARRY YOU!"

And that's our story. Today would have been 77 days till our wedding. However, at the end of March, because of the growing concerns of COVID-19 and the need to social distance, Alex and I made the decision that we would postpone our wedding celebration 'til next summer.

We are still planning to get married this year in a small service that we will stream online – at some point. We don’t know when. There is no date for our wedding because we don’t know when we can obtain a marriage license. In our province the license needs to be applied for in person and currently it has been deemed a non-essential service. So, we wait. Once we have a marriage license, we will make the plans for the online service (that will follow all social gathering guidelines in place at the time of the service) and let you know all the details of when and how you can watch online.