propose

/prə'poυz/ v.i. to make an offer of marriage.

Rachel and I are engaged! About a week ago, we had a really fancy dinner at the Sir Stamford Hotel dining room in Circular Quay. The restaurant was very nice, but there weren’t many people there for a Friday night. The food was great, and the restaurant was very accommodating. I’d rung ahead to book the table, and asked if they could make sure there were some gluten-free options for me. When we arrived, there weren’t any issues at all! I had some very tasty pork ribs with potatoes, and a wattle-seed brûlée for dessert. Delicious!

After dinner, we went for a quick walk down along the harbourside, and that was quite pretty, because the city was all done out in bright colours for the “Vivid” light show; all the buildings were shifting through the spectrum, there were fairy lights in the trees, and the opera house was being splashed with different colours. (Don’t think I’d planned that! It was all a lucky coincidence! As we were driving in to the city, I was thinking to myself, Wow! This is pretty cool, and great timing!)

As we sat down in front of the opera house, looking out at the harbour bridge, the water, and across to Kirribilli and North Sydney, I asked Rachel to marry me. She said yes! The weather was icy cold, with a chilly wind blowing. Rachel (who’d had an inkling that it was going to be “the night”) had brought her camera along. The photo turned out all right, which is a bonus, since I could barely keep the camera still because I was shivering so much!

Since then, the past week has been a whirlwind of discussion and the beginning of organisation. There’s a lot that goes into a wedding which I hadn’t realised. We’ve been talking about churches, reception venues, dates, themes, guests, music, ministers, dances, food, photographs and photographers, cakes, travel, the honeymoon ... the list goes on! At the moment, things are in the very early stages, but we’re looking at narrowing down our choices for reception and service very soon. That’ll help us start to organise some of the other things we need to do. We’ve already chosen our bridal party, so that’s very exciting. Rachel’s very happy with the ring. It had to be resized, but that’s all finished now, so I’ll take it back to her tomorrow.

We’re heading for a January 2011 wedding date. That’s not too far away! Stay tuned!