by Kandice Day

Created on: December 18, 2008

Vegas couldn't have been more perfect, mainly because everything went so wrong. What more would you want from your proposal weekend, right? It was so perfect because it was so us. Things never work out quite the way you plan, especially when it comes to me and Steph. And trust me, things never work out the way that I plan, so when everything went wrong this weekend, it was actually so right...ironically.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /

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Day 1: The master plan was to ask her to marry me on the 4th of July, after some spectacular fireworks celebration in front of the Bellagio Fountain. This was the very spot that we had our first "marriage" conversation, which ended up morphing into one of our first fights. It was the moment that I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life with this amazing woman, and so I whispered something about our futures together into her ear. She obviously wasn't thinking quite the way I was, and so embarrassment and anger followed the conversation well into the next morning. The Bellagio Fountain was definitely the place. We were going to see fireworks at the Red Rock Casino, drive back to the strip, and walk down to the fountain for a little romance. But after sitting in a parking lot at the Hoover Dam for a good two hours, arriving in Vegas much later than planned, then sitting in construction traffic on the way to the Red Rock, our nerves and evening were finished. I tried to pursued her to take a walk down to the fountain, but she could not be persuaded. Irritability and exhaustion are not the perfect setting for a proposal. So much for that plan.

Day 2: With the ring still secure in my jeans pocket I was checking it every few seconds with sweaty palms, afraid it would literally burn a whole through my pants and refreshed from a restful night, we made ourselves a cocktail mine a triple and headed to the strip for some gambling and sight-seeing. I was an absolute nervous wreck. Plans had changed and I had to come up with another perfect proposal idea to match my original masterpiece. At least my last plan had a lot more liquid courage involved.

As we walked into the Bellagio, I realized that the second best place to propose was the gardens. Thankfully, it was our first stop. Wondering around the gardens, looking at every flower but seeing not a single petal, I worked up some courage. It took me a good ten minutes to work up the nerve to just take the ring out of my jeans. In my haze of hysteria I barely noticed that my future fianc was wondering away from the gardens. I grabbed her attention by pointing to some "interesting" flowers in the corner, made some silly comment about how nice the garden looked, then stood behind her and stumbled out some awful concoction of a sentence. When I showed her the ring, her eyes teared up. I had failed miserably at the romance part of the proposal, but the tears were still there. She said yes, and that was that.

So, here we are...engaged to be married (or simply domestically partnered) in the wonderful state of California. I can't wait! There was a time that I never thought this day would come for me. I never thought I would meet my angel...someone strong enough and stubborn enough to put up with me and all my insecurities, issues and witty sense of humor. (ha). Life couldn't be better!

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