After living with Tracey for a little over a year, I made the decision to get engaged. I definitely think living together gave us an opportunity to get to know each other better and confirmed my feelings that she is the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.
Tracey is from San Jose, California and her parents, brother and sister still live out on the west coast. I had met both her parents on trips to California and their visits to New York, but I didn’t feel they had the opportunity to get to know me very well since our time together was limited. It was very important to me to ask them both for Tracey’s hand in marriage. I wanted to keep it a secret from her and maintain the element of surprise.
I had to wait several weeks, but I put together a great plan. Tracey, my family and I had to fly out to Los Angeles for my nephew Jonah’s first birthday. I booked our flights and, unbeknownst to her, I decided to fly to San Jose a day before her flight to LA and booked a connecting flight that would get me in just hours before her. I tried to come up with a good excuse as to why I would leave early, but decided I would wait until the last moment to tell her.
As the date approached, a huge snowstorm was forecast for New York on the day of my flight, and it began to complicate the plan. I had to leave a couple of days earlier to miss the storm, but it all worked out, as I used the excuse that I had to fly with my sister Samantha to help with my niece and nephew on the trip to the west coast.
I flew into San Jose and took my future in-laws out to lunch in Los Gatos the next day. I expressed how much I loved Tracey and how important it was to me to have their blessing. They were both very gracious and loving and happily gave their consent. Tracey’s father owns a jewelry store in Los Gatos and offered to help me find the diamond for the engagement ring. I was off to LA and landed without Tracey drawing any suspicion.
My sisters and parents were obviously very excited to hear my story of meeting with the future in-laws. As we discussed the story at lunch, my sister Elizabeth came up with an amazing and unique idea for the proposal.
I was on my way – searching for a diamond and planning the proposal.
