My now-fiance’s marriage proposal caught me completely by surprise and made for an unforgettable evening. It was on June 26th when he told me that he had something planned for our Saturday date night ritual. Unfortunately, I forgot to tell him that we had a pre-wedding party to go to for one of my friends. He paused, and then said that in that case he had something planned for us to do on Sunday afternoon, a picnic at the Lake Harriet rose garden.
Sunday afternoon came and it was raining. He was crestfallen. But then at 4:30pm that same day, the sun came out, he immediately brightened and took me down to the lake for a picnic. He surprised me first with a new picnic basket and blanket; then with four Chinese silk pillows that he laid out on each corner of the blanket. He brought food from my favorite restaurant, and after we ate he got up and went to get something from the car.
He came back with a bag that I thought must hold my birthday present, since my birthday was less than a week away. He took out a red leather photo album with "The Picturesque Tale of Manyvanh & Ryan" embossed in gold on the cover. He opened it up and the first page began, as a novel would, with the title of the story, his name as the author, and a dedication to myself that left a lump in my throat. He began to read to me a fairy tale version of our relationship that he had written and put together himself, using photos from the last ten years of our relationship.
The final page of the story was a photograph of him down on one knee, wearing a tuxedo, and holding the ring out to the camera. My fiance’ then put the album down, took out the ring and proposed to me just as it was in the final photograph. After I said "yes" we shared a glass of wine and walked through the rose garden hand-in-hand as the sun went down.
Proposal Story By:
Manyvanh Chanthavong
Minneapolis, MN
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