I will begin with a thank you to Tess for setting Nathalie and me up on a blind date. Granted it took awhile to come to fruition. After some confusion of whether or not I had Nathalie’s number, I was finally able to send her a message in early January 2018. She would love to get together, she told me, but she was heading to New Zealand for a few weeks. She promised to text when she was back, but I thought it an elaborate way to blow a guy off and moved on with my life. To my surprise she texted, and we set up a Monday night happy hour date at a brewery conveniently located off the light rail (my idea). The day of the date Nathalie informed me the brewery was inconveniently closed on Mondays. Embarrassed, I suggested Northbound, another brewery located not far from the light rail or Nathalie’s place (though I didn’t know that at the time). In unusual fashion, I arrived early and Nathalie arrived late. I’ll never forget her walking through that door on a cold January night. We talked for hours, both of us staying much longer than we had planned. We set up a second date for the following Tuesday before we parted. In my euphoria I left in the exact opposite direction of the light rail and had to double back past Nat, but she was too smitten to notice my error.

Flash forward to June of 2019. Nathalie is listing her house for sale, has just moved in with the boys and me, and the two of us are off for a ten day trip to France. Unfortunately the flight we plan to take the next day to Paris doesn’t look great (we’re flying standby). Nathalie comes up with another plan. We’ll fly to London, spend a day, and take the train to Paris. My heart skipped a beat. I already knew I wanted to marry Nathalie and London was the place I wanted to propose. More specifically it was a certain tree in Hyde Park under which we had the most perfect picnic. I made up some excuse and ran to REI to buy a hiking ring as I was not prepared for a proposal. The next morning Nathalie checks the flight loads and decides the Paris flight is worth a shot. The London flight leaves later, so it’s still a possibility. We don’t have a good reason to fly to London and Nathalie’s parents are waiting for us in Paris. All I can do is hope we miss the Paris flight and have to take the London plan B route. It’s looking good we’ll miss the Paris flight, but at the last second a few people miss their connection and we’re on the flight to Paris. Nathalie is relieved and excited. I’m bummed, though I try to hide it. We are not seated together. I spend the first half of the flight moping. Then I realize that if I’m taking it this hard that I missed a completely impromptu chance to propose I should just do it already. After all we’re on our way to Paris and have plans for a night under the Eiffel Tower. What more could you ask for? So on a beautiful summer night under a shimmering Eiffel Tower I got down on one knee while Nathalie got up to take a picture of the Tower. When she turned around I was ready with the most romantic proposal ever uttered. No audio or video recording exists to confirm this and neither Nat or I have any idea what I said, but what’s important is she said yes and now we get to make it official and celebrate with all of you.