The proposal

Hey everyone,
I’m starting a series of posts for a more behind the scenes look at our DIY wedding, mostly to document what we did, but also to maybe inspire others!

This week, it’s all about
the proposal!

When I thought about writing this, I also thought,
“Hmmm, maybe we should start from the beginning,”
As in the beginning of Danny and I,
But, I promised you the proposal story,
so that’s what you’re getting!
Maybe eventually I’ll post details from the beginning.
But, on to the proposal!

I guess you’ll get a small spoiler this week though,
because it’s important to know this:
I asked Danny out.
Going back and reviewing the evidence,
he did make one small gesture
that could be seen as taking a chance
or leading the conversation that way,
but we both agree that I took the bigger chance
and really made it happen.

For that reason, he was constantly reminding me
that I could NOT propose to him.
“No, you asked ME out, so I get to do the proposal,” he said.
Now, why would he even have to say that?

Well, because it’s me.
I’m Aries to a T.
I like to get things done, I’m a straightforward person,
and when I want something, I go get it.

Believe it or not, Danny and I had been talking seriously about getting married for a while.
He sold his house and moved cross country
before we had even been dating a year.
We knew it was coming,
and we also knew that we wanted to have kids soon,
ao why not get married as soon as possible?

One hassle: The ring.
I don’t wear any jewelry.
Never really have.
A necklace here or there? Sure.
Earrings? I literally have three pairs that I rotate through, and I didn’t get my ears pierced until I was 24.

So the thought of a ring sticking up off my finger
was sort of scary and weird.
I was worried I would lose it,
scratch it, break it, you name it.
But if we were going to get engaged,
we needed to have a ring.

At this point in the story,
you know we were planning on getting married in July.
I figured we had to give people
AT LEAST six months notice for the wedding,
so I sort of gave Danny the soft deadline of proposing by February.

NO, I was not haggling him or harassing him
(well, at least at first!)
I was just saying, “Hey, if you want to do this proposal thing, here’s the window.”

So, anyway, we headed down to these cute shops
in Capitola to go ring shopping sometime in the winter.
I honestly don’t remember exactly when.
We were thinking something with sea glass would be cool,
or maybe a green gemstone.

Newsflash: rings like that are expensive.
Not crazy expensive;
I know some people spend A LOT of money on rings.
But more than we wanted to pay.

And then I got thinking about it.
Would I have to wear the engagement ring
AND the wedding band?
I know some people get them to match and everything.
In my mind, that was just another decision we would have to make,
and one more ring to lose.
Again, not a jewelry person.

I really wanted the ring to be something special for us,
not just something we had to buy.
So I came up with a brilliant idea:
Mood ring engagement ring.

Benefits:
*Low price: 3 dollars.
*Doesn’t matter if it gets scratched.
*Doesn’t matter if it’s lost, it’s easily replaceable.
*Still counts as a ring.
*Fun to look at.

Downsides:
*Turned my finger green.

What can I say, you can’t have it all!

Danny thought this was a marvelous idea too,
so we headed down to Palace Arts
in Downtown Santa Cruz
and tried a few on.
I ended up getting one that just looked like a regular band, with the band changing colors.

Ok, so we had it.
Danny had the ring and he was making plans.
I guess.

All I know is that the months rolled by.
December.
January.
February.

My sister was asking me if the wedding was still on.
So I started dropping hints.
“Oh, I just can’t wait to get married someday,” or
“Well, that’s if I ever DO get proposed to.”

I promise you I was not being mean.
I was just GENTLY reminding him
that we had a deadline.

Well, one day it was too much.
“Alright, fine,” he said. “Go get the ring. Let’s do this.”

I was so excited!
And yes, I knew where the ring was.
Danny kept it in a geode by his computer.
I brought it down to him and he pocketed it.

“So, where should we go?”
“Let’s just walk down by the beach,” he said,
“and look for sea glass. We’ll find a good spot.”

We lived, at that point, three blocks from the ocean
(we now live closer!) so we strolled down.
It was a beautiful day and low tide,
so we found lots of sea glass too.
We even found this little cove that rarely ever is uncovered, so we got A LOT.

I know, I know, onto the proposal part.
So we walked down the beach then back up the beach.
I sort of worried that Danny had forgot about the whole plan, so I said,
“Ok, so are we just heading home now?”
“No,” he said, looking sort of nervous.
“We need to find a good spot.”

There’s this spot called the dirt farm because it’s all dirt.
There are rocks closer to the ocean that you can walk out on, sort of like ledges.
“Let’s go down there,” said Danny. “It’s so green.”
(Danny LOVES green)

So we did, and he looked around for a second,
then got down on one knee, pulling out the geode.
“Kathy Ellen Davis,” he asked, “Will you marry me?”
“Heck YEAH I will!,” I said, throwing my arms up in the air like a little cheer.
He picked me up and hugged me and kissed me,
then put the ring on my finger.
It was easy going because we got it too big (newbie mistake)
but it was perfect.
And it was green, which means: active!

Also, we got engaged on the Ides of March. (March 15th!)
See, good things do happen on that day 🙂

Here you can see the green 🙂

The ring in the geode

The close up version

Holding hands, engaged!

The whole spot. See how close it is to the water? Check out all the surfers waiting to catch the waves.

Engaged! We must take a selfie to celebrate!

I wore the ring all the way up until a week before the wedding (Danny said I should take it off so my finger wouldn’t be green for the ceremony; that was a good call!)

Most of the time I was blue or purple (happy and romantic) and it only got scratched a little bit when I was playing capoeira in the streets. Now that I think about it, I don’t know where the mood ring is. Maybe in NY somewhere? Or in a bag from then. I’ll have to look.

It was the perfect engagement ring for us,
and sort of set the stage for our real rings!
That post will be coming up soon,
But next week will be all about roughing out the details for the wedding.
Thanks for reading along!

KE