She Said Yes!

It's been a few crazy days around here, recovering from the excitement of last week and preparing for this blog post, my most important one yet. For those of you who haven't heard, I asked Molly to marry me last Thursday and she accepted! But what most of you have not heard yet is the story of the proposal, all the juicy details of how I asked.

Before the story of the proposal begins, I must remind you all how I first asked Molly to be my girlfriend, on February 24, 2003. Molly was an Apple user long before me, and a religious user of an electronic post-it note program named Stickies. I couldn't stand anything about these sticky notes - they cluttered her desktop and were numerous, but they kept her organized and focused in college so she loved them. When it came time to ask her out, it only seemed right to use Stickies - I knew she'd notice the notes. At the same time, I had to be creative. So I posed the question, "Will you go out with me?" in numerous ways, all in the hopes of eliciting the excited response, "Yes!"

It's been many years since that night where I snuck down to 3-West in Whitman's Jewett Hall and asked Molly to be my girlfriend. Recently, I did a fair amount of sneaking around to procure a engagement ring. I chose local jeweler Gabrielle Ferrar, just two doors down from Molly's mom's store in Downtown Chico. The families have known each other a long time and I knew they would make something beautiful for Molly. But I work with Molly and her mother and had to do some clever lying to avoid snooping and suspicion. In the end, I picked a ring I knew would be perfect for Molly that also made my jaw drop.



Last week, it was my turn to ask Molly out for date night and I knew I wanted it to coincide with our engagement. It would be a delightful surprise and completely unexpected. On top of it, Thursday happened to be the anniversary of asking Molly out (she didn't say yes until the 25th) so it also seemed the perfect opportunity to ask her the most important question I may ever ask. With a postcard invitation, I asked Molly to accompany me for ice cream after work on Thursday, to Schubert's Ice Cream and Candy, a Chico institution since 1938. We both got a single scoop of Chico Mint ice cream and, though it was a little cold and rainy, we sat on the bench outside Schubert's. We chatted about our day, our upcoming anniversary, and everyday concerns. I asked if she had saved all the notes from when I asked her out and told her I wanted to give her one more. I passed her a small blue heart on which was printed "Forever." In black Sharpie I had added two words to formulate a question, "Is Forever Enough?" The question is posed in a Dixie Chicks song as a response to the urging, "How long do you want to be loved?" Unassumingly, Molly said, "Yes," thinking the question perhaps alluded to our Friday anniversary, our eighth. Growing nervous, I told her that many things in life are uncertain, but that I know that my love for her and desire to have date nights with her for the rest of our lives is certain. I asked her if I could propose, dropped to one knee in front of the ice cream parlor, and proposed.



Shocked, surprised, overjoyed. Those were her initial reactions. Relief, glee, and supreme happiness were mine. She slipped the ring on and we embraced, chatted about how it was actually happening, and even received congratulations from several Schubert's customers. Apparently we had created quite a stir - one woman wished she had brought her camera to capture the moment and a couple congratulated us and shared butter rum candy sticks they had purchased to commemorate the occasion. They said they wished there had been something in champagne. It was a perfect moment for us, and the well wishes of complete strangers made it even better. We quickly retreated to the car to call family members and then finished our evening with pizza and beer at local eatery Farm Star Pizza and a congratulatory toast with Dom Perignon at home.

I can't begin to share with you all how perfect Thursday night felt. Sleepless nights, nervous moments, and extreme apprehension had plagued me for over a week. I was worried not about her response, but about setting the right scene for this most important event. In the end I will tell you that it all seemed just right, and not because of my planning or because of the beautiful ring, but because it was a happy occasion with my beautiful fiancée Molly. That seems to be one of those lessons you learn in a long relationship - it's not what you're doing that matters, but rather the company you keep on that journey. I've been blessed with the best companion imaginable.
_______________
Eric
Eric Lovelin Photography