What's up Matt!! How is it being back home [Australia]?! Do you miss us out here yet? I've got some questions for you regarding...wait for it...engagement rings! Nobody knows about this yet -not my best friends, not my parents, nobody, so please keep it on the super hush hush, as I'd like it to be a total surprise for Brandina. Since I'm an engagement rookie I thought I'd look towards the pro to give me a hand, and maybe even sell me a ring..... From past conversations, I'm pretty sure Brandina likes the square shape, yellowish diamonds (I'm not even sure what that means??). And I'd probably stick with a silver band. Sooo what kind of money am I looking at, how much time do I need to plan prior to receiving a ring, and what other tips or suggestions do you have for me? Is this something you'd be able to arrange for me? Hope all is well! -Bryan
October 5 2010:
Hey Dude. I can help for sure, in fact I would love to. It's really nice making things for friends because I get to see them enjoy it. So this is what we'll do - I can get some prices for you, but if you had a budget in mind that would be a great help. Fancy yellow (natural) diamonds are an amazing choice. They also come with a bit of a price tag, but I will be able to help you a lot on the price. I can then do a sketch of your amazing ring and take photos of the yellow diamonds so you can see what you're going to get and send these along. I also need a finger size if you can get it. I think this will be a great start. When did you need it for? I will have Fedex send it to your work place or somewhere and you can sign for it. It will be insured, so don't worry about that. Anyways congrats on this.. How are things in London town? I am missing it a lot hey. It doesn't have the buzz back here in Penrith. We are moving it to the city soon though, so that will ease the blow. Great hearing from you, - Matt
There's always two sides to every story. You've already heard (or read) Brandina's side of the engagement proposal. Now it's time for the inside story....
The two emails you read above were the first of 32 emails and 6 months of planning to make sure the proposal and the ring were as amazing as the bride-to-be receiving it. As you read, and as I'm sure most of you men can attest to, I had no idea where to even start. I did however know a few things: Brandina likes square diamonds, yellow diamonds, has a unique taste, and likes tulips. So before sending the email above, I did quite a bit of research online, as well as in numerous jewelery stores, asking as many questions as possible. Then I remembered that some of our Australian friends we met out here were in the jewelery business, so I figured it was worth asking him a few questions. However they had recently moved back to Australia, so this was going to be a long distance discussion. Brainstorming, ideas, questions, answers, and more research followed in the months to come - sometimes with Brandina in the same room as me. Throughout that time we decided on a cluster design, with the yellow diamond in the middle and some smaller diamonds around it. I should also add, he often reminded me that I needed to figure out her ring size, which I was struggling to do secretly. I did a bit more research, then Matt sent me this email:
December 12 2010:
Hey dude. How are things going? I have found the most amazing diamond for you. It's so bright and vivid. It's a princess cut diamond...and with the other diamonds around it, it will look perfect. I would buy this one myself, I love the diamond [Matt, engaged now, was also in the process of getting engaged at the time]. If that helps you decide.
Hope all is well. Let me know what your thoughts are and I will get a design drawn up for you.
-Matt
It sounded amazing, so I had Matt draw up the design:
I loved the drawing, so it was go-time. Meanwhile I still needed her ring size. So, on one of my days off, I went through all of the pictures I could find of her, and finally found one of her wearing a ring. I was able to find the same ring in her jewelery box, and knowing what finger she was wearing it on in the picture (not her ring finger by the way), I took it to a store to get it sized. This, according to Matt, was enough information for him to guess her size...yikes.
After a few more months and one ring nightmare (in which I dreamt the ring was an ugly, archaic, stone-age rock), February rolled around, and the ring finally arrived. It looked fantastic; I just hoped Brandina felt the same way. I knew it was always a bit risky choosing a ring with no help from any of her friends or family, but I decided that if I chose correctly, then it would be an epic win.
During the ring planning process, I had also been planning the proposal. Lucky to be living abroad, I had Europe as my playground. Paris? Too cliche. London? Too close. Her favorite city, San Sebastian? Perhaps, but we were already there, so she may suspect something. Think..think..what does Brandina love...roses? No, she hates those. Tulips? Tulips! The famous tulip fields in Lisse, Holland! The problem was, there is only a small 6-week window to see the blossoming tulips, and we were going to be on holiday through-out Spain with her parents for a good portion of that window. That meant either the first week of the window or the last week. I decided we'd risk the first week, that way we could celebrate our engagement with her parents, while also avoiding the annual ambush of "when are you getting engaged" questions (as in, Brandina's parents' ambush in Stonehenge last year).
The trip to the tulip fields was easy to convince Brandina of, because it was a trip we had talked about doing numerous times, so we planned it as normal, no questions asked.
Leading up to the proposal, with the ring taken care of and the trip planned, my only other concern was making sure it stayed a surprise (and hoping the ring fit...well and that she liked the ring too). This meant not telling a soul for quite a while. With Facebook these days, it doesn't take much for something to go viral. The saying "nobody I would tell, knows her anyway," no longer applies. Your mom's friend may be Facebook friends with someone who has a cousin living in London, who happens to work with Brandina. Not a risk I was willing to take.
There is a caveat - I needed a bit of advice, or encouragement per se, about the ring, so I told my brother, knowing that I could trust him. Not that the SDSU-Film-study-college-
So about two weeks before the proposal, I was in the U.S. for my cousins wedding, toting around the ring in my scrappy backpack (1) so she wouldn't stumble upon it in my absence (2) to show my brother and (3) so it wouldn't be out of my sight. At the wedding, surrounded by family and friends, I received an onslought of wedding questions myself: "When are you getting married?" "What are you waiting for?" And my personal favorite, while my grandfather married my cousin and her husband, he called me out in his speech saying, "I'm honored to be able to marry my granddaughter, now if my grandson(s) will just hurry up, I may be able to marry them also." I knew the barrage would be coming, and I also knew that I was going to be proposing two weekends later, so I just smiled and played stupid.
I really wanted to tell my mom, because this is a day she has been waiting for since I was called into the Principal's office in kindergarten, for forging her signature (true story - it was of course just her first name, in big block letters). However, I knew that if I told her, as hard as she would try, she wouldn't be able to contain her excitement until the secret was out. It was for her own good. So I had my brother call her late the night before I proposed - that way she did know before it happened, though she was up all night after that call....due to her uncontainable excitement. As a small additional twist, I forgot it was April Fools Day, and my brother and I have been known to collaborate on a few big ones in the past (i.e. that I wouldn't be graduating from grad school in '06), so she didn't believe my brother at first when he told her of the proposal plan.
I did have one more person to tell..err...ask actually. Call me old fashioned, but I've always thought it's respectful to ask your hopefully-soon-to-be-fiance's father for his blessing to marry his daughter. So, while in the Dallas airport on my last leg back to London, I rang Brandina's dad, and asked him for his permission to marry his daughter. After a solid chat about commitment, he gave me his blessing. A quick chat with Brandina's mom followed, to let her in on the details, and I was on my way back to London - everything going according to plan...
Which brings us to the big day, 2 April 2011. Our hotel was in an excellent location, directly next to some of the fields, and a 20-minute walk from the famous Keukenhof Flower Park. My plan was that we'd be frolicking about in some amazing, blossomed tulip field, and I'd get down on one knee, whip out the ring, and propose. There was just one problem. The tulips hadn't blossomed yet. It turns out our risky choice of the first week in the tulip window had failed. As we walked through the flower park, I was looking for some sort of worthy patch of flowers, but the right spot just wasn't speaking to me. I began thinking of a plan B, when Brandina said, "I overheard a couple talking to our hotel receptionist about renting bikes and cycling down to the ocean. I guess it's only about a 30 minute bike ride away, should we go do that?" I thought "bingo!" and replied, "That's a fantastic idea." As we biked to the ocean, I was still hoping to find a beautiful field, but alas there were none - well none that we could reach. We approached the ocean via the sand dunes, locked up our bikes, and when we reached the other side of the dunes, I peered down and knew the beach would be the perfect place.
As we walked on the beach, I asked Brandina to take a photo of some horses the other way (a distraction of course).
While she was taking those pictures, I pulled the ring out of my backpack, got down on one knee, looked her in the eyes, and spoke from heart. As Brandina has mentioned, she doesn't remember a thing I said. Her eyes and mouth were wide open - apparently the surprise worked. She claims the only thing she said was "shuuuuut-uuuuup," in the surprised, completely stunned sense of the phrase, but I don't remember that. I think we were both in a bit of a haze. She of course said yes, and when the ring fit, I finally exhaled.
And that, is the rest of the story....
- Bryan
"...I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." - Dwight David Eisenhower
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