By Tom
I decided I was going to pop the question to Sarah about a year before the fact. The reason I waited was that I thought it best for Sarah's sister, Becky, to have her wedding before I suggested we have our own, Sarah was busy enough being a dutiful maid of honour without needing her own nuptials to think about too!
I bought the ring in March 2022, a sensible man would’ve kept that information to himself, the less people that knew, the better; we wouldn’t want to Sarah to find out through the grapevine!
I was not a sensible man.
There was a running joke amongst my friends: “Everyone but Sarah knows you’re going to propose!” and this was mostly true for my side at least. Truth was I just couldn't contain myself.
Becky's wedding came and went, and I had plenty of "Will this be you and Sarah anytime soon?" from relatives, they didn't know what I knew, in a couple of weeks Sarah and I would be travelling to the USA, and I'd packed a ring.
The first of many hiccups in this story takes place in the departure’s security checkpoint at Manchester Airport. I'd packed the ring in my hand luggage as I didn't want it to leave my person, and sod's law dictated that my bag needed a thorough searching.
I had to quickly lie on the spot to Sarah, "you can't stay here for this, you'll need to go and sit over there! It'll take ages!", as I point to the furthest away bench. Greg, the security man (yes, I remembered his name), put on his rubber gloves and started rummaging. I leaned over and whispered, "there’s an engagement ring in there" and he 100% understood the assignment:
"Where is she?"
I subtly point to Sarah...
"No problem"
He places my bag on the floor and empties it behind the counter, what a bloke. Once Greg was satisfied I wasn't a threat to national security, we headed on our way to Orlando.
On the evening of Sarah's birthday a few days later, we drove over to the picturesque, almost-too-perfect American town of Celebration, FL. I had a ring-box sized bulge in my left back pocket, so naturally I was doing everything in my power to stay on Sarah's right. I tried to bee-line to the spot I had in mind, A nice looking bit of patio outside a retro theatre I’d spied on google earth, it overlooked the lake and it was perfect; but Sarah wanted Starbucks. I awkwardly stayed glued to Sarah's right hand side while she ordered her posh coffee, then we headed to the spot.
But I'd made a terrible mistake...
It turns out the pretty piece of patio was actually a water feature, and lots of children were playing in it. This wasn't going to do, I was going to have to improvise.
I suggested we do a lap of the lake that the town overlooked, about halfway round was a scenic bridge, bingo! We passed a man who was taking in the view himself, but I'll get back to him.
I asked Sarah if she would take some pictures of the view of the town from the bridge, and while she was taking it I got down on my knee.
I hadn't anticipated that Sarah would take about thirty photos, the wait was agonising, I looked over at the lone man, who had noticed what was happening, and we both shrugged "is she ever going to turn around?".
Soon enough, however, she did. And I asked:
"Will you marry me?"
In my head I had expected an ecstatic "YES" like you see in the films. But not Sarah, I won't publish her response, but it began with an "F".
She did eventually say yes though.
A couple of minutes later, the lone man wandered over and congratulated us, his name was Joshua and he told us about his own wedding in the coming November (Hope it all went well!)
He took our picture (above, left) and went on his way, we continued our walk around the lake.