The Time My Wife Ruined Our Engagement

Engagement stories are those of myth, legend, and rubbing in someone's face how awesome yours was compared to theirs.

This story doesn't fit any such category. Rather, our engagement story is one of kindness that led to sabotage that led to panic that led to disappointment that led to joy that led to mild shaming by a drug-inhibited relative.

The plan

I had a plan. A great plan. A make-your-friends-hate-you-for-being-so-amazing engagement plan.

Feel free to use it since I wasn't able to.

You'll need a photoshoot-worthy location. Ours was Savannah, Georgia. Ahhh, the low country. Where palmetto trees give needed shade to boiled peanut vendors and palpable racial tension.

In said place, you must have notable tourist-worthy locations in order for your friend's step-dad who's in marketing act as if he's shooting a spread for the city and wants his step-daughter and her friends to be the stars of the shoot.

The faux journey ends at a fancy place--let's say, a high-class hotel with a fancy restaurant overlooking one of the most photographed fountains in the country like the one pictured.

The group of ladies will enjoy a multi-course meal while the step-dad captures the laughter and other non-fabricated emotions. It's not creepy that he's taking pictures because you've worked it out with the fine dining establishment ahead of time, and because the girls know he's taking photos. Don't forget those parts or it will be creepy.

The grand finale is when you're the 'server' who brings out the desserts at the end because that's when you'll pop the question. The place will lose their minds. She'll cry so much. And it will all be captured by a professional picture taker.

Are you writing this down? You should be. Because it is elaborate. It is awesome. It will be easy to mess up or miscommunicate if not written down. This is also how the entire thing will be sabotaged and become the almost awesome story behind the story you tell of your actual engagement.

Kindness killed everything

The plan was to be engaged near Thanksgiving to enjoy the holiday season as a newly engaged naive couple. My birthday is near the first of November. Me, Nick Lachey, Matthew McConaughey--just to name a few.

To celebrate the year of my birth, Lindsey cooked up a fantastic surprise. She procured tickets to Duke basketball's blue and white game. These were the good years of Duke basketball. As part of the surprise gift presentation, Lindsey went to my house to grab one of my Duke shirts. Normally a very sweet detail I would appreciate and write about in my diary.

Remember when I said to write all your engagement plans down?

You should also hide those plans in your t-shirt drawer so you don't misplace them in all the excitement. That way, when your significant other goes to get a t-shirt out of said drawer, unbeknownst to you, she finds the engagement plans titled, Engagement Plans.

The choice

She found the plans. She had a choice. She made a choice. She read the plans.

She then called her friend whose step-dad was going to take the not creepy pictures of several young women in their early 20s.

"I found Patrick's engagement plans! Oh my gosh, these are the most amazing rub-it-in-everyone's-face plans I could've imagined!"

   Well you have to tell him.

"No. I want it to happen."

   It can't happen. You ruined the engagement plans.

I can't remember if it was Lindsey or her friend, Kathryn, who told me. But I knew she knew.

The drive to Duke was both exciting and excruciating. Duke would win the game, though! Which was no surprise given it was a scrimmage against Duke.

What happened, you ask

We got engaged. Okay, but how did you do it?

In the way Lindsey most wanted not to get engaged. At a restaurant. But with a photographer and elaborate scheme? No. Okay, but the whole restaurant was in on it? Nope.

In fact, I had to make Lindsey mad at me beforehand so she wouldn't expect a proposal. I did a good job considering another friend had to convince Lindsey to actually go to the dinner with me.

I bought a Pottery Barn jewelry box with her new initials on it (presumptuous much). We'd been doing 12 days of Christmas, so this would be one of those days--December 21.

She opened the gift. Oh cute, a jewelry box with my initials.

    Ah, but did you see what the last name initial is? She did not.

But she did after I pointed it out. And then she hugged me.

    And then I said, open it...open the box.

Guess what was in the box?

It was the same ring I would've proposed with during the super awesome scenario murdered by my soon-to-be fiance's kindness just a month before.

She said yes. The end.

Only it's not the end.

Shamed by a medicated mother

The proposal happened at the nicest Panera Bread in downtown Savannah. Hold your judgment, it wasn't Panera then, but you can get a delicious crunch bagel there now.

Back then it was a nice restaurant called Gottlieb's. But when owners close their restaurant in the dark of night and employees show up to work the next day only to discover they have no work, the Yelp ratings really suffer.

Across the street was a Starbucks that hosted the likes of Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Garner, and Ben Affleck.

Lindsey's friends were at that Starbucks watching, ready to celebrate after the fact. I didn't know this was happening. It was not part of my plan anyway. Those gals would've been seated at the actual table in my plan if Lindsey hadn't burned it to the ground with her love.

Meanwhile, at Lindsey's house, her dear mom--love her--had surgery that week. Bless her heart, she was in pain, and the meds really helped alleviate that pain. She was also quite loopy.

At some point, whilst confined to the bed, Lindsey's mom saw a goblin in the corner of the room who whispered, "Patrick planned for everyone to watch the proposal and celebrate...except youuuuuuu."

Was there a goblin? We'll never know.

Again, she was on the pain juice and hardly coherent, so grace upon grace. Lindsey asserts that I cried when mom expressed her disappointment. I don't think I did.

I may have.

Mom later apologized and maintains to this day she has no recollection of the aforementioned events, which I believe the goblin told her to say.

The end.

Or is it?

It is.

Except that Lindsey will tell me half the details are wrong, which may be right.

The end.