I’m in the middle of my regular morning news read and I come across this article on Gizmodo. Now, the main video itself was neat but also kinda lame at the same time. What I found more entertaining was this video in the comments which was a way better proposal I think anyway.
Regardless, when I see videos or read stories about cool or unique wedding proposals, I’m always reminded of what I did for Tamara. I’m not one to toot my own horn, but I think I did a pretty awesome job in my proposal. Seeing as it will be our five year anniversary in a few weeks, I thought I would repost the original post from Bobsroom.com where I told the world we were getting married, and how she was proposed to. Here’s the post in it’s entirety dated back in summer of 2005.
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Yup. You read it right here for the first time folks. This mac-daddy is getting married a second time. I proposed to Tamara this weekend and she was very happy to accept, and I was happy to hear the acceptance for sure. I actually have quite a story to tell regarding the proposal so if you really want to read all about it, click on read more and see the whole story.
It actually started back in April. I think Tamara can probably give you the exact date but I basically just decided that it was something I wanted. So, for the last few months, I have been very systematic in organizing what I thought would be a very nice proposal. To be honest, the proposal from my first marriage was awful and I knew that I wanted to make this extra special, especially since it was for Tamara. So, I sent her on a “quest”.
After working for the last few months on getting everything just right, Friday at 4:30, she had a package delivered to her at her work. She was told she could not open the package until she got home, and she had to listen to her phone messages before she could do anything. When she arrived home and listened to the messages, she heard a nice message from me, informing her that I would not be home, and she would be going on a little adventure the following morning. The message also told her she could open her package.
The package contained Clue #1, a disposable camera, cell phone, watch and other instructions. She basically had to visit www.tamarasquest.com and get details on how to solve a puzzle. She would have to travel around the city of Moncton and beyond, collecting clues from various places of importance to me and her. When she was done, she would be able to claim her prize; something she didn’t know. In fact, she knew nothing about the entire quest at all, just that I had been up to something the last few weeks.
So, Saturday at 11am, she was allowed to open her first clue which sent her to where we first met, Alexander Park. She collected a clue from there which lead her to my mom’s, then to her old apartment, and a pile of other places all around the city. Where we had our first dance, family outings, other parks, her mom’s, the cottage. Everywhere. She was told to take a photo (with the provided camera) for future use. She had no idea that she was taking pictures so she would have a specific account of how things went down when she got proposed to.
The 13th clue was actually at the Magentic Hill Zoo. She was told to go home and that she had to solve the rest of the puzzle. What she had not been told yet was that there was actually a complete other puzzle she would have to solve. In each clue she got, she received a photograph. Each photo was of us, our family, or something else and had very special meaning to it. On the back of each photo was a number and a word. She was told to go home and visit the website again, and click on each “story” about the photo using the word on the back as a username/password. Each story would have another clue in it. By using the 13 words from the photos, and the 13 words from the stories, she would have 26 words. She would then have to put the words together to solve her final puzzle.
The numbers associated with each word were that words place in the final clue. So she laid them all out in order and realized that she could claim her prize at the lookout spot on Indian Mountain; where we had our first kiss.
She showed up there, and I was waiting with a chair for her to sit in, and a rose sitting in a Coke bottle (since I had no vases). She sat in the chair, and I read a letter to her about how awesome and amazing she is and the end of the letter was me proposing to her. She was crying and I was nervous but she said yes so I dug the ring out, and all was good in our worlds.
So how’s THAT for a proposal? Here’s what even more interesting. It’s totally like it was meant to be. It rained on and off all day and I SO wanted it to be clear when she showed up to get her prize. It was sunny and clear for the hour that I needed. There were people at the lookout tower when I got there and other people showed up. I wanted it to be a moment for me and Tamara alone. By the time she showed up, everyone else was gone. And the most amazing part of these “meant to be” things is that it took Tamara about 7 hours in total to do her quest and claim her prize, me. There are 7 stones in her engagement ring. Talk about interesting coincidence. Regardless, it’s all good. I have a new wife-to-be.
Now before you ask, we have no dates set. We can definitively say that it will be a small ceremony but will likely have a nice big-ass reception party for all of our friends and family. Other than that, we have no details now and we’ll work it out later. Right now, we’re enjoying the “engagement” phase.
I have more news to report on as far as this weekend as we had some major things happen today unrelated to the engagement, but I am going to hold off on those for now and get the work I need done out of the way.
