What? No-one has noded this before? Cowards.
I'm not against the idea of marriage. Being brought up in a stable Northern Irish home, with younger sisters and neighbours with children I always wanted to settle down. I realise that is unfashionable these days, but who cares?
When I was young and stupid (quiet at the back, I mean 12 years ago), I was in love. She was the girl I lost my virginity too and the one I thought I was spend my life with. Common mistake. All our friends were getting married, it seemed like a good idea at the time to me to propose. I did it badly. It just popped into my head as we were driving one day. Apparently "Do you want to get married or not?" isn't romantic. She still said yes, but it went wrong, as relationships do.
So the second time around, late last year, 12 years on, you'd think I would do it right. You'd be wrong.
I had sold my house, managed to pay off my debts and have some money left over, with which I could, if I wanted pay for a wedding. I wasn't sure I wanted to. To celebrate the house sale, I suggest dinner at The Orrery, my favourite restuarant.
It was raining, trains were late. I was feeling evil on the journey. At random I said "I'm not going to propose you know". But, with that statement, the evil wedding fairy had planted the idea in my mind. So, midway through the second course my mouth open. I believe I said "We could get married if you want". Hardly ideal. Obviously she said no. But now the evil wedding fairy put the idea in her head.
2 days later was Monday. She started googling for engagement rings. Just to see, you understand. I was not to be trusted to choose the right one. She sent me links. I ordered one. She didn't know.
It arrived 2 days later, on the Wednesday to work. The amount of pressure from colleagues on how to propose romantically was obscene. Stress built.
Thursday arrived. The Exchange server at work dies, and I'm pulled away from development to kick it hard. I am not happy, but she's coming into London for lunch.
So Mr Stress Bunny and I meet her for lunch, bitching about the mail server, the evil colleagues giving me stress on how I should propose and how generally wound up and stressed I was about everything.
She looks at me and says, in regards to the proposing "Don't stress - look the answer is yes".
"You'd better have the ring then" I say.
So that's how I did it. Apparently this isn't romantic either, but what the hell. It worked.