As Save the Dates and the wedding website have gone out, I’ve been reflecting recently on my proposal to Alex, telling different parts of the story along the way. Last night, I told someone the story of how I talked to Alex’s parents about getting engagement before I proposed to Alex–and I thought I’d share it with you.
Being the slightly more impulsive/quick decision-maker of the two, I decided I was going to propose to Alex sometime last year. Part of me wondered if she would beat me to the punch line, but with her head in medical books most hours of the day, I figured it would be me. With the ring and location picked out, now I just had to decide whether or not I was “asking the parents” first.
I’m not the only lady-knee-bender who asks themselves this question, but I wanted to know Alex’s opinion on the matter. I wasn’t interested in “asking for her hand in marriage,” but there was something about sitting down with her parents and having a conversation about the future that appealed to me.
Alex agreed, in an answer to my round-about question. She told a story of a friend-of-a-friend who’s parents had been in on the surprise and said that having her parents there to celebrate with her was important; I continued to grapple with what it meant to me.
Even with a lunch planned and organized with her parents, A & D, I still struggled to articulate what I would say to them when the moment came: “I would like to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage…?” “We’d like your blessing…?” “Me and Alex wanna get hitched, is that cool?”
In preparation (along with readying my vision of a 5-year plan and getting comfortable saying “yes” to grandkids), I wrote out a list of my deepest intentions for wanting to marry Alex. When they came back as revolving mostly around family–becoming part of a new family, bringing families together, making a new one–I had my purpose: sitting down with A & D, whom I already loved dearly, was not about asking for permission, but rather about opening up a conversation about family, love and life that included us all.
So when my response to “What did you want to talk to us about, Erica?” came back halfway through our luncheon in St. James’ Park as “I’d like to talk to you about proposing to Alex,” I knew why I was there. Granted, they were still shocked as all hell, but I wouldn’t have wanted to do it any other way.