New York Engagement

If you are just looking for pictures, you can check them out here. If you would like to know the story, please read onward. It's long.

Let me start by saying this: I'm not a details person. This drives Christy crazy. Therefore when I first decided in mid-November that we would take a trip to New York City for her Christmas present, I knew I would have to plan every minute of the day. So for the past month or so I had been planning a day in the Big Apple. It was only about two weeks ago that I knew I was going to ask her to marry me and only about a week ago that I knew I wanted to ask her in New York. I figured, I already had the train tickets so getting engaged in New York might be too good of an opportunity to pass up. I talked with her dad on Monday last week, went in to buy the ring on Tuesday, picked up the ring on Friday, and asked her on Saturday. Needless to say, it has been a crazy week.

Also last weekend we talked for a while about how she was willing to follow me if I decided to take this step and get engaged. I had already made up my mind that I was going to ask her in New York, so as she was describing this, it was just confirmation for me. However, I didn't really know how to tell her how I really felt about her without ruining the surprise. Basically, she poured out her heart and all I could say was, "Good." To which she was not very happy and summarized our conversation by saying that I must not like her anymore. So Monday and Tuesday were pretty miserable last week.



On Wednesday she got off work early because of the snow and I figured that somehow I needed to buy a few days of her being happy so we could just make it to New York. I left flowers on her car Tuesday night for her to find in the morning, with some candy and a note. A while ago I had told her to keep the 8th open for a "fun day" but that afternoon I finally informed her that we would be taking a train to New York City and going ice skating. The week got better and she was very excited by Friday night for our trip the next day.

By late Friday night I finished packing, making last minute changes, etc. and was only able to get about 2 hours of sleep because my alarm went off at 4:40 AM on Saturday morning. I drove over to her house and picked her up and went down to Penn Station in Baltimore. On the train ride up, Christy slept about 3/4 of the ride and I got 10 minutes of sleep. I was practicing what I would say, sweating because the train was so hot, and wondering if she had any clue that there was a ring hidden in a sock that was buried in my backpack.


We arrived in New York and I had written 7 little clues in the form of short poems that would inform her about our next destination. The first clue was to basically give her the choice of seeing Times Square, The International Center of Photography, Rockefeller Plaza, Radio City Music Hall, St. Patrick's Cathedral, FAO Shwarz, and of course, the Apple Store. Times Square was first because it was one stop north on the Subway. It worked out well because it was not very crowded at 9 AM when we arrived. We went window shopping a little bit and then made our way over to the Rockefeller Plaza.


By lunch we ended up at FAO Shwarz which is near Mickey Mantle's NYC, the restaurant where we stopped and ate. For whatever reason, our food took forever to come out and while it was nice to have a break from walking, we were both ready to move on to ice skating as soon as we finished eating. We then crossed the street into Central Park and rented skates at the Wollman Ice RInk. Neither of us fell during our time on the ice but our legs and feet were definitely tired and sore which didn't help us much for the next step.

At this point, Christy knew nothing about what our plans for the rest of the day. She knew we would go ice skating and go sightseeing, but from then on, she didn't have any idea. My next plan was to take her to get a horse drawn carriage and go to a place called Ladies Pavilion in Central Park. We walked over to pick up a carriage and unfortunately there were people lining the streets waiting for the carriages to empty. We quickly gave up on that idea and decided to walk to the pavilion. Christy was a trooper and it was actually her idea to walk the distance even after we had just skated. Only once did she mutter, "This had better be worth it." It actually worked out for the best because the carriages only go in a secured route and they don't take you around like a cab. So essentially we would have wasted some time and money to go in a circle.

Once we arrived at the pavilion, I started to freak out a little bit because there were a bunch of people in and around the pavilion. It wasn't nearly as isolated as I had pictured. Fortunately though, there were a bunch of big rocks nearby that were overlooking the city so I led her down by the frozen pond and found a rock for the two of us to sit on. I then told her I had a couple of surprises for her and began to get everything out of my backpack including the ring, my iPod, and some small speakers. Christy loves a song called Springtime Indiana by Sandra McCracken and I always knew I wanted to play that song when I asked her to marry me. So I began to play that on the iPod and put the ring in my back pocket and sat down next to her.


I began by talking about our conversation the week before and when she felt like I wasn't saying anything, it was not because I didn't want to, but because I couldn't. You see, a few of us fellas had decided that we would not say "I love you" to a girl until we were on a knee proposing. So when I told Christy that I loved her, it was like a switch went on in her head and she realized, "Oh wow, this is it." I've been telling people that one of the coolest things in my mind wasn't necessarily what Christy said, but how she said it. After I told her I loved her, she immediately said, "I love you too." When I asked her to marry me she said "Yes, of course," without hesitation. I pulled out the ring and we hugged for a minute as the song finished playing. I put the ring on her finger and we began to talk about the past week, my talk with her dad, and things like that.


From here, I gave her the next clue which was to go visit the Empire State Building. We had to walk a couple of blocks and take the subway back to 34th street as we began to call family and friends to tell them the good news. After standing in line after line to get to the top of the building, we got to see New York at night and it was beautiful. It got cold pretty quickly, but we were able to take our time and see everything from the top.



In between the Empire State Building and dinner, we had a chance to meet up with Christy's friend Rachel who lives in New York and a few of their friends who were conveniently just visiting for the day. We met on the street corner across from Macy's and showed off the ring. It was hilarious for me to be with 4 or 5 overly excited friends/moms of Christy.


We then stopped in Starbucks to catch our breath, warm up, and kill some time before dinner which was at a restaurant called La Masseria. I had 3 red roses delivered to the restaurant before dinner and they were placed on our table when we arrived. Funny side note quick story, when I originally called and asked for reservations between 4:30 and 7:30 they said they were booked for the evening. I then explained that I was going to be getting engaged that afternoon and that I had heard great things about their restaurant. Then lady then said to me, "Oh why did you have to tell me that? Can you do 7:45?" in a thick Italian accent. I said sure and the place was great. It wasn't too formal that we felt out of place since we were tired and dirty, but much nicer than Baja Fresh.


After dinner, we finally concluded our day by walking over to the Rockefeller Plaza one more time to see the Christmas tree all lit up and it was beautiful. The perfect way to end the day. We made it back to our train station and sprinted to the train to try and get good seats before everyone else. At last we arrived in Baltimore at 1:50 AM and drove home. Christy's mom hadn't slept a wink and was awaiting her arrival. By the time we both got home and settled in for the night it was 3:00 AM. Almost a full 24 hour day.

Basically we're both thrilled, I love Christy, I'm glad our trip worked out so well, and if you've read every word of this, you have no life. Or you're a college student who took a really long break from studying for finals. Regardless, now I'm going to try to respond to the 489 people who posted on my Facebook wall. Thanks for all the love!