The Engagement Story

Everyone has been asking how Andrew asked me to marry him so here is the story.

On Thursday Andrew told me he had planned a surprise for Friday. A few months ago Andrew tried to surprise me with dinner and tickets to Bill Bailey and I ended up finding out about the surprise ahead of time, so this time I wasn't going to ask any questions and I wasn't going to do anything to accidentally find out what we were doing. I even let Andrew pick out of dress for the night.

He took me out to Aubergine, a very nice restaurant I've been wanting to try for a few months now. The food was absolutely amazing, I started with roast quail and scallops wrapped in bacon and Andrew had fish with chorizo and squid. Yes, you are going to hear the menu because the food was so amazing that even without the proposals this post would have been all about it. For mains Andrew had lamb rack with a whole bunch of yummy stuff including a little pot of the best lamb stew we have ever eaten, I had veal fillet with mashed potatoes and this great pesto/salsa verde.

Towards the end of the main Andrew and I were talking about how we should do this kind of stuff more often because we always love it when we do, and I commented that I think the reason people celebrate anniversaries is so that they have an excuse to go out for nice dinners, but since we've never picked on to celebrate we don't do that. That's when Andrew said, 'Well maybe we should change that' and got up from the table. To tell you how unexpected this was when he got down on one knee next to the table I thought he was doing it to pick something up off the floor that he dropped. Than he told me he wanted to spend his life with me, and asked me to marry me as he pulled the box out of his jacket pocket and open it. The ring is beautiful. Andrew had picked it up from his parents house when he told me he was going for a run before dinner, the run consisted of running to his parents house and back.

As you can imagine I said yes. I pretty much spent the next 15 minutes shaking on the inside, I could barely finish my main. The waiter came by and smiled when he saw my ring, than he asked if he should bring something else out. Andrew said yes and the waiter soon returned with a bouquet of Gerber daisies, my favorite. Andrew had Kate and Judy drop them off earlier that day for him. Than he brought us glasses of champagne. After we finally finished dinner we shared a lava cake, the kitchen staff wrote 'Congratulations' around the edge.

We stopped by Andrew's parents house quickly on our way home to tell them the news since they had known since before dinner that he was going to ask. Unfortunately it was too late to call my parents by the time we left dinner because they were already on their way to work for the day. 

When we got home Andrew said he had one more surprise for me. He pulled out his guitar and played me a song that he had written for me, the first song he's ever written. I started crying almost instantly and didn't stop until well after he was done. It was the most romantic thing ever.

And that is the story of our engagement. We got up early to tell my parents on Saturday before tracking down Jess in the wilds of Colorado, calling the grandparents and quickly spreading the news through family and friends. And that brings us back to now :)

And of course, the ring itself:

When you look at the ring in profile Andrew noticed that the setting forms a 'W' for Walker, not done on purpose but it's a pretty nice coincidence