So we walked into Davis Square and got coffee at the Starbucks where we had our first coffee date. There she gave me another card that told me four more reasons why she loved me. This card instructed me to go to the place where we had our first kiss. So we hopped on the T (the subway system here in Boston) and headed to Park Street Station. Another card was presented once we got there. This one told me to follow her into the Boston Common (we had finished our first date walking around the Common). Unbeknownst to me she had packed a picnic lunch and we sat down to eat. Eventually Jen pulled out her travel scrabble (she had mentioned earlier that she wanted to play), handed it to me and I opened it.

(Tahda!)

I of course said yes. I then presented her with the scrapbook I had made.

Quick side note:  I had been carrying the scrapbook around with me all weekend in case “it” happened.  I would love to say that the whole time I was mystified as to what was going on, but I figured it out with the first card.   So when I saw that she was bring a backpack (to stash the picnic and scrabble in), I asked if I could put something in the back pocket of her backpack and then snuck the scrapbook in.  Now back to the action.

(There she is reading it very astutely)

It had just the effect I was looking for. She was disappointed that it wasn’t a ring and was thoroughly surprised when the ring was at the end.

Of course we proceeded to take an obscene amount of photos. The only hitch in this was that Jen had forgotten to charge her camera batteries. I had my camera, and we took some photos with that. But my camera is old and is not focusing as well as it used to. Eventually Jen couldn’t stand it anymore and went across the street to a Seven Eleven and bought batteries.

After all of this we packed up and went to the Museum as planned and spent the afternoon looking at art.

The day was perfect. It was a day that could have been any other day for us and yet it was so much more.

*All personal photo’s

This photo is a LIE! We weren't engaged... and never have been!*

I like that it happened that way. It’s much more in keeping with our “relationship personality”. This doesn’t mean we aren’t romantic – we’re pretty sappy, mushy, overly romantic types who believe our falling in love is like every love song come true. But this is one of those things that I think snuck up on us pretty early in our relationship and it needed to be a mutual decision come to through good communication.

And yes, I realize that you can have a mutual decision come to through good communication AND have a proposal moment – but when we decided for sure that we were getting married, we were going to do it nine days later! So, getting married jumped pretty quickly to the top of the list and hainvg some kind of proposal just sort of fell of the list altogether.

Now, that’s not to say we didn’t have some sweet moments surrounding our decision to get married.

A few months into our relationship, we started to talk seriously about our future and what we wanted to be doing. We had a bit of a time-sensitive pressure situation in that we had both packed up our lives and started travelling together (with friends) and once the traveling was over neither one of us had anything to go back to: no apartments, no jobs, no home cities even. And we were in a position where I couldn’t live in Bek’s country. So of course we had to have some conversations about what we were going to try to do about being together. Once we diecided we wanted to live together once we were done traveling, I was feeling pretty comfortable about the seriousness of our relationship and was more than satisfied with how we were doing.

Then after a particularly fantastic night in Santorini, Greece, Bek asked if in a year from that day we felt the way we did at that moment would I want to get married. Kind of like a proposal, but a bit more like an inquiry into my interest in marrying. A sort of pre-proposal. Bek had a theory about needing to live with someone through four seasons in order to truly know them. Fine by me! This was the first time we’d talked about marriage, so I was thrilled! I was always the “I don’t need to get married” type, but that didn’t mean wouldn’t have liked to get married. So of course I said yes! And we talked a little more about it over the next couple of days, then kind of tucked it away as something we would revisit in a year’s time.

The night Bek gave me a marriage inquiry...

Fast forward to only three months later, and we’d moved to Canada. We were starting to make our long-term plans in my country and we run into the immigration issue. There were several options for Bek immigrating to the country, we didn’t NEED to get married. And we were very firm that we did not want to get married for immigration reasons. But it definitely got us talking about it a lot sooner than the one-year-away date we’d agreed upon. And we both had to admit to each other that… we really wanted to be married to each other! And once we got to thinking about it, we figured why wait! It was coming close to Christmas, and we were going to be spending it just the two of us with no families, so we thought what better way to spend the holidays than by getting married! We bounced the idea around for a few days, kind of unsure if we should jump in. Then we were sitting in what’s now become “our” diner, having breakfast and something just clicked. We both both just got too damn giddy about it to hold back anymore, so we had kind of a “Let’s do it!” moment! We walked the two blocks to city hall and got our marriage license right after breakfast, and booked our ceremony there for nine days later on Christmas Eve.

So that’s it. Two pretty special non-proposal moments. I love the way we did things!

I have to admit – I thought not having a proposal wasn’t that unusual, especially amongst LGBTQ couples. But in reading blogs and such when I started planning our second wedding, I started to feel like I was the only one who didn’t do or have a proposal. Anyone else out there not have a proposal involved in their engagement or wedding process? I’d love to hear about others’ experiences in non-traditional ways of initiating their engagement/marriage.

*first photo courtesy of Kelly Prizel Photography

On Wednesdays, we go to the movies, cook dinner for each other, catch a Broadway show, or just cuddle on the couch. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to just be. To relax. We need it! You need it!!

I truly believe that we need  as humans need to find a way to live in the present. With wedding planning, we are constantly having to think in the future – and if you are like me, you are thinking about it constantly. Therefore, create a day that celebrates your love in the present. In a nutshell, engage in your engagement because it goes so quickly.

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.

1. Ignore the Traditions: Etiquette aficionados will tell you that the function of an engagement party is to introduce your two families to each other and formally announce your engagement to world. But lets be honest this isn’t the 50′s, there is a good chance that your families will have met already and be well aware of your engagement. Also if they haven’t met yet perhaps this isn’t the best occasion to blend families and spring the news of your engagement, those matters may require a touch more delicacy and this occasion should be about you and your fiancée and not the mama-in-law drama. Other traditions include the parents hosting the event, elaborate decorations, and heavy teeming. Ignore these traditions and rules unless they suit you personalities, the fact is that your about to plan an event loaded with traditions. There will be time for rules, etiquette and formality.
2. Assemble the Right Crowd: Another thing etiquette guides will tell you is not to invite anyone that isn’t going to be invited to the wedding. But this can be a great opportunity to invite people who may not be able to make it to the wedding. Our wedding is going to be in Southern California so it was nice to be able to celebrate with many of our friends from Vegas. Also if its at all possible to have out of town friends attend it can be worth the extra effort to get them there. The mingling of my groomsmaids from San Francisco with Joey’s groomsmaids gave a real sense of family and our own private wedding community coming around to celebrate us.

   Photos From My Private Collection

3. Keep It Simple: Its easy to get caught up in a the images of a high society engagement party, finger foods, mimosas but really ask yourself if that’s representative of your relationship. If that’s who you are then go ahead and rock to the beat of that drum but remember your launching into planning a big and expensive party as it is so making this event as simple and stress free will help allow you to enjoy yourself. In lieu of engagement gifts we made the event B.Y.O.B and potluck. This gave us a wide variety of friends specialty foods and drinks from enchiladas and chocolate truffle cupcakes to homemade limoncello and pumpkin beer. We also held it on a night we would have held a party anyways, in our case Halloween. Which meant it was very little expense and unwanted stress for us.
4. Have Fun: At the end of the day this is just a party, its not the most important day of your life but it is a special occasion and it can be one of the most fun days of your life. Let loose and let go!

Having fun in New York City, playing with all the wonderful lines and colors you can find makes these pictures hard to stop looking at.