Erin and I met while we were both attending Messiah College. She is an artist and has primarily been focused on painting. She has been working in Mass for the last 2 years at a boarding school as a residence counselor, while continuing to develop her work. She has been able to show some of her paintings in a few solo exhibitions in the last year and has been accepted to attend the University of Connecticut in the fall. For those of you who maybe out of the loop, I have been back in Mass since the summer. I was relocated by my company to live within the territory, which has been MA, CT, and RI for the last year and a half now. Being local, among other things, has allowed us to reconnect and the rest will soon be history. So, now back to the story at hand. From my perspective this is how it happened.
In the last few months, Erin and I had discussed that we would like to get married. I suggested that at Easter, when we went to New Jersey to visit her family, I might talk to her father. [With out too much suspicion I was able to visit with Erin's parents on my way to Pennsylvania for work last week. At that time I asked her parents permission and picked up the ring, which is a family heirloom from Erin's great grandmother.]
I decided we should spend Saturday in Newport RI. Erin insisted I bring my camera along. I am not sure why but it might have been because earlier in the week we had discussed her testing out my camera to see if she liked using it. This was the perfect lead in I needed. We took pictures all day long so the event is well documented.
It was getting towards dinner time after a day of hanging out in the Newport's downtown, driving around the island, and walking the cliff walk. We went to a beach where I used to go as a kid. Unofficially called “second beach”, I think. We wanted to go down onto the beach for a walk and to take pictures before the sun set. It was colder then and very windy. We walked a bit but because of the cold we were talking about heading back to the car. I strongly insisted on taking a picture on the beach if we could find someone to take it for us.
Finally we spotted a guy walking with his kids. We asked him to take a picture for us and he agreed. Then when we went to pose for the picture I got on my knee instead. He commented, "oh that kind of picture!"
I some how stammered out “Erin ... will you marry me?” [It is amazing how a carefully crafted speech just gets lost at moments like these.]
After some dialogue and some of the shock wore off, she did say “yes” and I put the ring on her finger and finally breathed again.
Neither of us really knew what to do next, so we walked around a bit. The reality began to sink-in more during the rest of the night as we called various friends and family members.
A possible summer 2007 wedding date is in the works.
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