The Proposal Planning

You can catch our engagement story here from her point of view (which is the more interesting one anyways). I'll talk more about the planning.

I had originally planned to propose on Labor Day weekend, when I was going to be up in Mountain View for several days. E was supposed to visit 2 weeks earlier, the weekend of my Boards, to celebrate. I thought about proposing then, but I didn't think I would have enough time to set things up since I couldn't take much time off from studying.

But, the best way to hide the truth, is with another truth. It's a great way to allay suspicion ;). Works great in Bang!, as well as in executing surprise proposals. Boards weekend was therefore the more ideal time; I could throw an elaborate "celebration" under the pretense of celebrating finishing the Boards, and being the first time we would see each other in 2 months. She might be suspicious at first, but I could always play innocent and she would always have that reasonable doubt (cue M.Burns "excellent...")

I ran across Spa Montage sereptitiously on-line. CNN.com had an article on the 10 best spa resorts in the country, and I clicked on it while I was bored at work. One of them, the Montage Resort and Spa, was just 20 minutes away from my house. Hmm, seemed promising. After visiting it, I thought it was perfect!

And the rest is history. There were a couple of hiccups though, in the pre-execution phase. After I had gone to a lot of trouble and made all the arrangements and reservations (1 month in advance was required), Karen and Joy tried to get people together to play in SoCal the very same weekend. Could have been awkward, but the trip got cancelled, so didn't have to worry about that anymore.

Then the morning the limo was to pick E up at her parents' house, she had a cold. She didn't know of course what was coming. Because she wasn't feeling so well, she wanted to cancel, and have me come up to her house instead. It took a lot of cajoling and reassurance that she'd be fine, and that we'd have fun. She finally agreed, but she didn't sound very happy. Of course that's when, right before hanging up, I quickly mentioned that someone else was going to pick her up instead of me ;).

Oh, and what was I doing while E was in the spa? I was taking advantage of the resort, enjoying the view, and passing the time in the beautiful lobby reading Ender's Game (thanks, Mike!). After all, I figured, why should E be the only one that gets to relax and have fun? :P