A tale of a wedding-to-be

Standing with Calum in front of my dad as he asked for my hand in marriage was one of the most nerve-wracking moments of my life. Though instead of a moment, it felt more like an hour. It wasn't so much that I thought he would say no, there was just a palpable awkwardness about the whole situation. They liked each other, but my dad was just surprised by it all.

It is understandable, I suppose, looking back. We'd only been dating for about four months, and hadn't even been in the same state for one of those months. Only after did I actually calculate the months and found them to be much fewer than I'd imagined at the time. To us, it seemed like it had been such a long time. (Though in a good way, not in your this-class-has-gone-on-forever sorta way)

When you see people in movies look across a crowded room at a recent introduction and say, "That's the woman I'm going to marry someday," it is quite the romantic moment. But.. well, it feels really creepy to have these feelings about someone you've just started talking to on a more serious level. Maybe I was just worried that my secret (okay, maybe not that secret) creepy side was manifesting itself, causing me to get way ahead of myself. In any case, I told a few close friends, but was not about to broach the subject with Calum.

A few weeks after Valentine's Day, he asked me to be his girlfriend and we began to talk even more. (If that is possible) For whatever reason, it soon became apparent that both of us wanted a life together and we began to plan for it. We talked of it often, even going through part of a marriage counseling booklet together over the phone.

After I returned home, we spent almost all our free time together. (Sorry, friends!) Finally, after several months, Calum was able to work past the nervousness and fear I'm sure a lot of young men face when preparing to ask for the father for his daughter's hand in marriage. I'm a little amused by the fact that we even googled how to ask and that sort of thing. Finally it was over, and within a week, Calum had proposed in "our tree" that we had visited all throughout the summer.

And that is the long, drawn-out, and possibly badly-written story that lead to our engagement.