Bride Blog: Perfect Proposals

This is Laurie, and I’ve been working as Shelley’s assistant for just over a year now. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, we’re excited for this month’s release of The Promise of Palm Grove, the first book in Shelley’s four-book series called Amish Brides of Pinecraft. To celebrate this series, she has invited her Amish author friends to answer a wedding-related question each month. Their responses will be featured in this blog. January is devoted to proposals.  How did he pop the question?  Here are some proposal stories from some of your favorite Amish authors:

Kelly Irvin

Tim and I had only known each other for a very short while on this momentous occasion. I wrote for one of the local daily newspapers. Tim was a photographer for the El Paso CBS affiliate. We met on a Chamber of Commerce sponsored van trip to Albuquerque, NM, for the Mexican Food Cook-off the World. I’m serious. Afterwards, we dated a number of times in quick succession, beginning with his station Christmas party. In January, Tim invited me to his apartment for dinner. He wanted to cook for me, he said. I’d never seen his apartment before. I have to admit to being a little intimidated by how clean it was. I told myself it was because he knew I would be coming for dinner. I learned later, no, he’s a neat freak. He grilled Orange Roughy on a little charcoal grill nestled on the walkway outside his second story apartment. January in El Paso is cold. I’m sure the neighbors thought he was a little nuts. I remember him apologizing because so much of the fish fell through the grill. It didn’t matter. Afterwards, we snuggled on the couch and to my utter amazement, he popped the question. I was truly stunned at the suddenness of it all, so I asked if I could think about it. He said, sure, then he brought me a calendar and asked, “How about Valentine’s Day, February 14?” I found I couldn’t say no. We married on Feb. 14, 1988, three months after having met on that van. This year we celebrate our twenty-seventh wedding anniversary. Sometimes, it’s just right!

Mary Ellis

I write historical romance. I think people make a bigger deal out of “popping the question” than they did in the past. Here’s my hero’s proposal in my February release, The Last Heiress:

“I planned to build us a cabin with a dock, and then buy a fishing trawler. If you get a hankering to be a fisherman’s wife, you could still travel to Wilmington to order cotton for Dunn Mills.”

“I love fresh fish,” she murmured.

“Then what better reason would you need to marry me?”

Short and sweet, but it got the job done!

Amy Clipston

I donated a kidney through a swap on June 14, 2011, at Johns Hopkins Hospital. My husband, Joe, and I matched another couple and swapped kidneys with them. I donated a kidney to a woman, and in exchange, her husband gave a kidney to Joe.

My memoir, A Gift of Love, details our journey with Joe’s kidney disease and his two kidney transplants. Below is an excerpt from my memoir, detailing how Joe proposed to me:

That summer was a whirlwind and I ran on the adrenaline of new love. I could steal two hours of sleep and still function at my internship working on the Features Desk at the Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk. Joe and I spent our weekends driving on the
beach at Oregon Inlet in the Outer Banks, North Carolina … The evenings during the week we talked in the driveway or cruised around town.

My mother and my best friend at the time, however, didn’t agree with my excitement over my budding relationship with Joe. They both cautioned me not to get involved with him because he was on the rebound from his previous long-term relationship. But I was caught up in the all-consuming warmth and excitement of new love, and I ignored their warnings. Looking back, I’m so glad I didn’t take their advice. I may have been his rebound relationship when he kissed me and asked me to be his girlfriend on July 8, 1994, but I was the center of his world when he asked me to marry him on July 8, 1997.

When he proposed, he first gave me an ID bracelet engraved with my name on the front and the date on the back. He then said, “I have something else for you, but it’s not wrapped. How do you wrap a last name?” I nearly melted to the floor!

Amy Lillard

I’m a romance author. I would love to tell you how utterly romantic my marriage proposal was. How we got all dressed up and went to the fanciest restaurant we could find. Wined and dined with roses and diamonds. Or maybe a cute and quirky story where he picked me up for a picnic and proposed during the soap cycle in the drive-thru carwash.

But alas…

It went a little something more like this. I was in the back bedroom of my apartment ironing when he came in the front door. I heard him, but didn’t stop what I was doing. Then he hollered back, “Hey, Aim. You wanna get married?”

So. Romantic.

I know, right?

But I can’t complain—and I won’t. That was twenty-five years ago, and I have loved every minute.

(Okay, that’s not really true either, but I felt like I needed to say something romantic! LOL)

Still I wouldn’t change a thing.

Jennifer Beckstrand

Most of my Amish love stories end with a kiss and a proposal. I hope that doesn’t spoil my books for anyone, because romances are supposed to have happy endings, aren’t they? No surprise there.

Three of my daughters are married and each of their husbands proposed to them in unique ways. One son-in-law gave my daughter a patent to his heart so that no one else would ever own it but her. Another son-in-law took my daughter to the park where they had first met. A blanket was spread out on the ground with a bouquet of roses sitting on it. They sat on the blanket, and he recited Shakespeare’s sonnet #116 by memory.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken…

I personally think this is one of the most romantic things ever written. My daughter did too.

My other son-in-law flew out to Washington D.C. where my daughter was teaching school to propose to her. They walked along the river looking at romantic national monuments while my son-in-law worked up the courage to pop the question. He was so nervous that he couldn’t do it, even on the romantic bridge overlooking the Potomac. They finally went back to her apartment where he proposed to her in the stairwell. He’ll never live that down.

Vannetta Chapman

My husband proposed to me with an Easter egg!

That’s right. He wrote, “Will you marry me” on a tiny piece of paper, stuck it into a plastic Easter egg, and then waited for me to open it.

Three months later we were wed. And yes, I do still have that plastic egg.

Shelley Shepard Gray

My husband popped the question on my 22nd birthday. It’s kind of funny; both of my parents knew he was flying to Arizona to surprise me so no one called me on the morning of my birthday. By eleven am, I was really sad, so I went to my apartment complex’s pool. When I got back to my apartment, I found Tom in a suit (in Phoenix! In August!) standing next to my door looking extremely hot (not in a good way!) and extremely irritated. I guess I was supposed to be home at a certain time! Anyway, when I showed up, all icky after laying out by the pool for a couple of hours, he glared and practically shoved a ring at me. Then he said the words I’ll always remember: ‘Do you want to get married or what?” LOL! It definitely wasn’t how I imagined the proposal but it does always make me smile.

We invite you to share your story with us. How did he pop the question? Join us next month to hear about engagements.