Our Engagement

Because it was a little last minute to go NY for a very short weekend and a little last minute to decide to propose (I got the rings the Wednesday before), I didn’t have a full on plan. I figured I’d be able to find a quiet moment in Central Park, in front of Starry Night at the MoMa, on the Brooklyn Bridge or any of the dozens of other places we go when we visit our favorite city. But only having one day filled with driving rain and colder than expected air put a literal damper on that.

At the very least I knew I could propose at our favorite Georgian restaurant over breads and melted cheese, the true language of our hearts. That became the plan.

But on the last night we ended up in a basement piano bar in the West Village, just a stone’s throw from Stonewall Inn, singing Broadway show tunes with the rest of a mostly queer crowd.

When the pianist started playing the Elephant Love Medley from Moulin Rouge, one of our favorite Broadway shows, I realized this could be the spontaneous moment I’d been waiting for.

I leaned over to a complete stranger and whisper yelled, “If I hand you my phone, could you please video me? I’m about to propose to my boyfriend.”

As everyone started belting out the section from Whitney/Dolly’s I Will Always Love You, I fumbled for the ring in a little bag in my pocket a little too long. I got it out, turned around and got down on one knee right as the words “how wonderful life is, now that you’re in the world” wrapped the moment.

People started cheering, the bachelorette party behind us started crying almost as much as us and the servers brought us tequila shots. It was the perfectly imperfect moment I had been hoping for.

It was a bit more emotional than we thought it would be. Yes, it was a surprise, but we already had a date and hadbeen building our family for a while. This day would have happened months earlier had big life changes not made it wise to push things back. But I’m so glad it happened on that day and in that way.

We closed out the night singing Sondheim’s Giants In The Sky and headed back to the hotel to share our version of the story and go to sleep as fiancés.