Engagement Story

On Thanksgiving Day, 2014, my immediate family joined Sarah’s extended family at her brother John and sister-in-law Roxie’s house in Bolton, Massachusetts, for their celebration. On this particular Thanksgiving, I’d expected to visit my sister Cindy in Huntington for Thanksgiving Dinner Number One, and then head back toward Bolton for Thanksgiving Dinner Number Two. A storm the day before knocked the power out in many places, and we ended up going directly to Sarah’s family’s gathering.

I’d worked with a couple of Sarah’s family members to make the engagement happen as a surprise. Roxanne Latimer was informed, and agreed to help make sure the music to which Naomi would dance was available via her home’s modern audio gadgetry.

Between dinner and dessert, the pretext of Naomi’s dance was used to gather everyone together. Naomi, after choosing between two musical selections I’d suggested, choreographed this entirely herself. Despite the sometimes amusing distractions, she pulled it off beautifully.

As the family applauded, I took Sarah’s hand, and led her into the center of the room. She still didn’t make the connection, until I got down on one knee.

“Sarah,” I began, “You are the answer to so many, many prayers—”

And that was as far as I got.

“Yes,” she interrupted, almost forcefully. “Yes, I will marry you.”

Most important, was one detail. Sarah had been adamant all along about one, tiny specification: “No Lego ring!” So, of course …

I had spent a couple of weeks crafting this box, my first-ever SNOT (studs not on top) design in my life. Sarah wondered why, on her visits, there was black Lego scattered all over my family room, but she never made the connection. (To be fair, my house is rather Lego oriented, so this wasn’t too much of a gap from reality.)

The only thing that kept me alive was Amanda Csank, Sarah’s delightful cousin and employee of a diamond merchant, who was able to confirm immediately, that I had, indeed, been working with her for the past month on a real engagement ring—a sapphire, just as Sarah wanted, and which Sarah chose herself a week later. While waiting for the finished real ring to arrive, Sarah proudly wore the Lego one, despite it begin uncomfortable and her penchant for losing the “jewel.”