December 31 2010 was an oddly warm day. Matt broke out the grill he had just received for Christmas and lawn chairs for a mid-afternoon grilling session. I was busy taking a nap until the food was ready. Little did I know what all had happened during that nap, or the week before.
Despite all odds, Matt had worked with KFB Jewelers to design my ring (See the full gallery on their Facebook Fan Page). He didn’t think he’d have a way to pay for it that day, but with some unexpected blessings, everything worked out. He picked the ring up early New Year’s Eve morning, and had it in his coat pocket all day.
We went to a Rock Band New Year’s Eve party. Just a few moments before midnight he asked me to go into the living room by the fire. I had an idea that something was happening before we even left the party in the basement, but was fairly sure he didn’t yet have the ring. To my surprise, he not only had a ring, but had designed it.
Several months before this big event, Matt had me look through engagement rings on a few franchise retail sites. I narrowed it down to the idea that I’d like our friend Kendal’s handiwork on something that was yellow gold, a round diamond, and sat in a 4 prong setting. I loved the idea of a 3-fold cord as well. Matt had all that in mind when he went to see Kendal.
In the past 5 years, I’ve been in a very tumultuous life transition, and Matt knew that I wanted a fresh start in many ways. Matt’s words to me were “As a season ends, a new year begins. Will you marry me?” at the stroke of midnight. I was speechless, which seldom happens. We lingered by the fire for a bit in tears, and made our way back to the crowd of friends downstairs. A few knew it was about to happen, but we opted to not make a huge scene of the event.
It took all I could do to track down my little sister and share the news with her before I posted about this on Facebook, as she’d already flown back to Santiago, Chile.