After 8 years of being friends, 5 years of dating, and a number of months of hints and nudging, Napoleon proposed on the evening of Wednesday, November 17th, at long last.
On that Monday, he told me he wanted us to go out to a nice dinner on Wednesday night (which raised some red flags). As the week wore on, he continued to make sketchy comments and send me emails like "get excited for dinner...it will be the best dinner of your whole life." On that Wednesday morning he wrote me a cute note on our white board in our kitchen.
As an aside, anyone who knows me, knows I hate surprises. Actually, I don't hate surprises...I hate knowing that something is going to happen, but I don't know all of the details. For example, presents. I hate knowing I'm getting a present, but I don't know what it is. It translates to all aspects of my life; I do as much sleuthing as I possibly can, to figure out what's going to happen. Our engagement was no exception. I was on guard for months, trying to determine what, when, and where it was going to happen.
Of course Napoleon knows this about me, and he wanted to do everything in his power to make the engagement a surprise. While most people would say that his emails and notes may have blown the proposal, Napoleon knew me well enough to know that I would write it all off as him trying to mess with me. Which I did. I remember that day at work, before I left, I turned to my co-worker and said, "Either I'm getting engaged tonight, or Napoleon is really doing his best to confuse me. And it's working."
I headed home from work thinking that the dinner Napoleon had planned was just a sike out. When I pulled into the parking lot at our apartment, he was in the window watching me (sketchy), and then at the door waiting for me when I unlocked it (even sketchier). He said hello, like it was nothing, and then went about his business getting ready for dinner. In the course of the following 15 minutes, Napoleon suggested no less than 3 times that I take a shower before dinner. The more he asked, the more I knew something was up, and the more I stalled...just to see what was going to happen. After the 4th suggestion, I decided to humor him, and got in the shower.
Before I came out of the bathroom Napoleon called to me, saying he had picked something out for me to wear to wear to dinner. When I came into the bedroom to see what it was, he was on his knee with the ring and proposed! And as we all know, I said yes!
I have to say that Napoleon was incredibly nervous and awkward, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. After 5 years of dating, and months of living together, it's easy for us to fall into routines and the normalcy of our lives. It was so endearing to see that our relationship and the prospect of our futures together still gets our hearts racing!
Napoleon really set up everything incredibly well. He had already told our families that it was going to happen, and even our closest friends. I couldn't believe that no one leaked it to me! It was great because we were able to go right to dinner and really enjoy that time together and celebrate before all of the phone calls and craziness ensued. We went to Chart House which was on the water right in downtown Annapolis. We sat at a quaint table with a fireplace on one side, and the Bay on the other. It was perfect!
The biggest surprise of all really was the engagement ring. I had absolutely nothing to do with picking it out, which is exactly how Napoleon wanted it. I must say, he did an awesome job!
Here are some pictures:
In our post-proposal excitement, we ran out the door to go to dinner and I left my camera at home. All I had was the camera on my phone, and of course I made Napoleon take a picture with me on the dock outside of the restaurant. It was so dark out, and the quality is pretty awful, but I'll always love this picture since it's the only one we have from that night!
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