Proposing: A Dude's Perspective

When people ask how I proposed to Lorie, it’s usually kind of hard to explain. The short answer is: Candles. Gifts. Poem. But for those people who are really interested in hearing the whole story, here it is…

I remember when I realized that I wanted to marry Lorie. It made me happy. I also remember when I realized that she wanted to marry me too. It made me even happier. When I started thinking about the next steps, though, I admittedly became a little nervous. It wasn’t the ring (I mean, all you do there is plunk down a bunch of cash and hope for the best, right?); it was mostly the proposal. My family didn’t usually tell proposal stories around the campfire, but I knew people were going to ask later. I mean, a bad proposal either becomes a family joke (if she says yes) or a sad warning tale to everyone on the block (if she says no) in the end. Best to sit on this, I thought, and let the creative juices simmer for a while.

The idea sort of came to me when we were hiking up Ensign’s peak in Utah. In retrospect, maybe it was the high altitude… Lorie commented to me that when she was in college and went on hikes in Utah, she would always see groups of high school kids going on group hikes before a dance. (This perhaps merits some explaining…Utah has a unique system of guys asking girls to high school dances, which includes a series of creative puns or puzzles that eventually lead to the name of the person asking you to the dance. The answer must be reciprocated in kind; a simple “yes” or “no” would not suffice. The dance is not just a trip to the dance and back, either. It includes dinner and a day-long activity; ergo, hiking. As far as I can tell, it arises from Mormon dating rituals in the 70’s. There’s some more info about it here).

Anyway, the point is she felt like growing up in Texas she missed out on a lot of that because she never did the fun activities beforehand, and she never got asked in the crazy ways. I replied with something trite, like that I would have asked her if we were in high school. She commented that she didn’t like going to the dances that much anyway. Hmm….asking to dances without the dancing…would this work? My mind thought it over and, at the very least, I would get a few points for originality. All systems go.

Back in Houston, I went to work putting everything together. Now, I remembered that there were a few rules that others had told me about proposing. One was to personalize rather than generalize. That part was probably the easiest for me. If you’ve never heard of the short-lived MTV series Daria, I don’t blame you - but Lorie has, and we both loved the show in our earlier years. So I found some DVD’s online and ordered them. I made T-shirts for the band that we had formed with our Guitar Hero characters. I painstakingly made a dorky little picture frame with all sorts of mementos of ours scattered around it.

When the day came, I told her I had a gift that I had made her for our four-month anniversary present. We’re all into personalized gifts, so it’s not that uncommon. She came over to my place after work and the dance “tickets” were all lined up for her – homecoming, prom, etc. Each ticket had a gift, a separate activity, a separate dinner (usually restaurant gift cards), and of course the puzzle/pun. There were secret messages and word searches, basically a panoply of creative ideas. I made sure to include plenty of cheese in there, like the classic “Now that I’ve kissed the ground you walk on, will you go to prom with me?” That at least got a laugh – and the context made it original. Everything was going according to plan.

In all modesty I think I did a pretty good job of not making her too suspicious about it. After all was said and done I wished her a happy anniversary and read her a poem that I had written. The last line of the poem said, “I can’t do anymore than give you this…” “Give me what?” she thought… At that point, I handed her a beat-up old wallet with stickers on it that spelled out her name. Inside was another beat-up picture of the temple and a beat-up card that said “Will you marry me?” Luckily, the sheer ridiculousness of that item had distracted her attention enough to get me on my knee with the ring out in front of me. And then I said it out loud for her, “Lorie Franklin, will you marry me?”

This was what I had waited for – the reply. For those few moments, the tension built like the inside of a volcano. Then she broke the silence with…
“Are you joking?”
“Does…it…look like I’m joking?” I said, not sarcastically, but truly unsure. I furtively glanced at the ring to make sure it was still there. Maybe I had made her a lot less suspicious then I thought.
“Yes, I will!”
The tension was broken, happy moments ensued, and the rest is history. I'm glad I did it, and I'm glad it's done.