Robyn’s Side

John’s Side

I’d had the ring for a few weeks already and was getting really anxious to give it to her. A few days before our anniversary, I’d asked Robyn’s mother for her blessing. Once I’d received her blessing, it was really hard not to just ask Robyn the VERY next time I saw her. But I held on and stuck to my plan, sort of.

I wanted to surprise Robyn as best as I could. So I let her know ALL week that I was working on a surprise for her for our anniversary. And then I stayed locked away in my computer room working on it, hoping that she’d pick up on the fact that I was making something for her anniversary present. Last year, she’d given me a scrapbook with pictures and letters and e-mails from our first year of dating. This year, it would be my turn to make the scrapbook. Only I had a twist in store.

After getting a couple’s massage, along with a romantic lunch at the day spa . Robyn asked if we could exchange presents before we went to dinner that night. I’d planned to exchange the gifts and propose AFTER dinner, so by the end of the night, she’d given up any thoughts that the proposal would come that day. But I relented and agreed to do the exchanges then.

So I put on an Anniversary CD that I made for us to listen to throughout the day and we exchanged gifts. First she gave me her gifts to me. And then it was my turn. I began to downplay the gift, saying I didn’t have a lot of money to spend on the present. Robyn had a sly, little smile on her face when she saw the scrapbook shape box that I pulled out. She said, “I think I know what that is”. I wanted her to know it was the scrapbook before she opened it, so she’d think “This is the surprise he was working on”.

In a way, it was. I’d written a special poem to her for each month of our Second Year together. And I complemented the poems with events and pictures from each month of that year. I was REALLY hoping that she would be touched at the poetry and the effort I put into writing the poems. She’s a romance writer after all, so the bar was set really high to make the proposal a romantic one. I wasn't disappointed. She started crying with joy on the first poem. The last poem in the book was missing. In its place was a poetic note explaining that I would recite the last poem to her, which I did. And I ended up on my knee reading the last line of the poem asking her to be my wife.

She said “Yes”.