Three Engagement Stories

Andrea & DarshanWashington, DCDarshan (my fianc

Andrea & Darshan

Washington, DC

Darshan (my fiancé) and I first met when we both signed up for French 101 at the University of Maryland, College Park. The first day of class, I was running late (which is very unlike me) and when I showed up at class, I saw that my favorite seat (the last seat in the row closest to the door) was taken. Although I was a little bitter that I couldn't hide out in the corner, the seat directly in front of this one was open so I took it. The class started with the introduction of French salutations and before I knew it we had to partner off to practice our newly learned vocabulary. Everyone seemed to already know someone else in the class so I was left with the option of turning around and becoming partners with the dude who stole my favorite seat. Little did I know this "dude" would be the man who would eventually steal my heart.

Although we hit it off as linguistical partners we remained classmate acquaintances only as we were both not in the market for a significant other at the time. We parted ways after our French 101 final, not to see each other again until that fateful day one year later when we randomly ran into each other on campus. We chatted briefly but my shyness brought the conversation to a quick end to avoid any awkward silences. As I continued walking back to my dorm I regretted not pursuing anything further than a brief encounter with this guy with whom I discussed the insipid details of my "activités pour le week-end" every Friday morning for an entire semester.

After much deliberation, I looked him up in the student directory, sent him an email and from that day forward we have been inseparable. Three years later, Darshan proposed to me in the sneakiest of ways. The week before he planned to propose we had discussed trying out a new restaurant during Bethesda's Restaurant week to try some new cuisine. We were deciding between French or Spanish food and French won out so we went to Mon Ami Gabi that Friday evening. Throughout the meal, his cell phone kept ringing and he refused to answer it until it became so annoying he had to see what was going on. After speaking briefly, he told me that an old work colleague had tickets to see Dave Chappelle performing at the University of Maryland that evening.

Although, I thought it was weird I hadn't seen this advertised, I knew he was a huge fan so I figured it would be fun. After dinner we made our way over to campus and all the parking lots were suspiciously empty, but the wine I had at dinner made me blissfully unaware. He called his friend to see where we were supposed to meet to obtain the tickets so we parked the car and trekked off to this friend's dorm room. In the midst of walking, I realized we were walking along the same path we had been when we bumped into each other our senior year (3 years ago) and I made some cheesy comment about memories.

As I looked around, Darshan told me that he had lied about the tickets and he had really brought me there to propose. I nervously laughed, figured he was just joking (since we had been to 4 weddings in the previous 4 months) but before I knew it, Darshan led me to a candle-lit path lined with flowers and chocolate and dropped to one knee at that exact spot we ran into each other and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him.

Ronnie & Rich

New York, NY

My fiancé is the caretaker of the organ at Radio City Music Hall and I am the first full-time female organist there. We met there before I had been hired briefly in July 2004 and again in February 2006. Little did I know that at our February 2006 meeting, he had begun to fall in love with me, even though we did not see each other again until I began the audition process that September.

Rich proposed to me on February 4, 2007, the one-year anniversary of the day he first began to fall in love with me. The festivities began the night before when he took me to dinner at the Rainbow Room -- at the top of the NBC Studios building, next door to Radio City; decorated in the same art deco style as Radio City; with similar lighting as Radio City; and where there used to be a Wurlitzer theater organ like at Radio City.

Are you following the theme? At the stroke of 9:30 p.m., the band began a tune and Rich turned to me and said, "This song is for you." It was Sinatra's "The Way You Look Tonight" -- the song we had already chosen to use as our "first dance" song because it had come to Rich the moment he saw me all dressed up for a formal dance we went to back in December.

After church on February 4, Rich took me to Sarabeth's, my favorite place for brunch. Then he started driving towards Radio City. Rich brought me to the exact spot on the stage where we'd stood one year before, said "I'm sure by now you know why we're here," and then recounted the story he'd told me tons of times of how he first saw me coming up the stairs … "the most gorgeous thing I'd ever seen" … "those big beautiful blue eyes" … "I lost my heart that day." Rich put his arm around me and walked me towards my organ, recounting how I began to spend a lot of time there practicing and later playing the show, and how we'd spent so much time together there talking.

He asked me what one of the things was I'd said I loved the most about him was, and I said it was how he surprises me. He asked how he used to surprise me when I was playing for the show, and I said, "By putting stuff in my drawer." So he opened the organ drawer, and the ring box was inside. He took it out, got down on one knee, and asked me to be his wife. I was crying and smiling and squeaked out a "yes." The ring is designed so that when you look at it from the side, you can see the art deco sunburst pattern of the proscenium arch of the stage at Radio City.

Debra & Mark

Tucson, AZ

I'll never forget November 13th 2006. It was the day before I had to go back to the doctor to find out if my cancer was spreading. To top things off I had a horrible day at work. I came home in an extremely grumpy mood and immediately changed out of my work clothes and put on ugly, but comfortable pajamas.

Mark (my fiancé) saw that I was stressed out and offers to play a board game with me. This is something we do very often when we are just bumming around the house, so I thought nothing of it. He pulls out Monopoly, but then I realized that I wasn't really in the mood to play, so I told him that if he wanted to play then he had to be the banker. He said that was fine and, as we were playing, he kept landing on the Community Chest cards.

Usually I make him show me the cards because he is a cheater, but for some reason I was so out of it I didn't care. He kept making up things, like he had to pay $25 for taxes, and I thought nothing of it. I finally landed on a Chance card and when I read it I couldn't understand it. It said, "Your boyfriend finally proposes, collect diamond ring. "

I was so confused, I was reading it and thinking this isn't a card (Mark made the cards look exactly like the real playing cards). I looked over at Mark and there he was down on one knee. He explained that he had to do it that day incase I got bad news at the doctor, and then he didn't know when he would have another chance to propose. After getting over the fact that I was all disheveled, I was thrilled and said yes!

The best part is that now we have those cards as a reminder of how he proposed and we can show them to our children one day. We are currently planning our wedding for October, and as of January 22nd, 2007 I'm cancer free!