How We Got Engaged

On Friday, October 5, I (Spencer) tried as hard as I could to convince Marie (Marjorie) to come downtown. She had other things she wanted to do on Saturday, so it was hard to convince her to come to Chicago. Marie was expecting a proposal sometime in the fall, but she did not think it would come as early as October. I knew this, so I wanted to propose while it could still be a complete surprise. On Saturday morning (October 6), we took a train downtown to spend the day in Chicago. We walked to Millennium park, one of our favorite spots downtown, and Marie suggested that we sit on a bench to enjoy a Jamba Juice. I had planned on proposing on that bench, but I had no idea how to convince Marie to go there and still keep it a secret. As we sat on the bench, Marie was a little disappointed that she came downtown for no particular reason when she could have done other things back in Wheaton. I did my best to convince her that we could have a fun date in Chicago even if the proposal wouldn't come until later. After talking for a while, I pulled a small box out of my camera bag and got down on a knee. I opened the box with the ring, and asked her to marry me. Until the moment she saw the ring (even while I was holding the box), Marie thought the entire thing was a joke meant to teach her patience. Marie quickly said yes, but was crying and so surprised that she couldn't really talk, look at me, or look at the ring for about an hour. After she realized that she actually was engaged, we walked around downtown, enjoyed a Chipotle burrito, and caught an evening train back to Wheaton to begin calling everyone to share the good news.