Sasha & André’s Engagement Story!
[Andre] It all started on September 7, 2011, when Sasha was out at Mariko’s hen’s night. (That’s “bachelorette party”, for you North American carbon-based lifeforms.) That was the first night that my parents were in town when Sasha was out, so I could tell my parents that I was planning to propose to Sasha. My parents were planning on heading to the east coast of the USA the next week, come back to San Francisco, then return back to Sydney. Of course, after hearing my ideas, they suggested that it’d be lovely to do the proposal in Boston—-where Sasha’s family is from—-and I couldn’t agree more. Sasha & I had planned to fly to Boston on the September 17 weekend, two weeks later from the initial discussion. So my parents changed their flights to remain on the east coast, and hop over to Boston when Sasha & I would be there on September 17. Of course, all this was unbeknownst to Sasha since she was out that night, and we intended to keep it that way. The stage was set!
When Sasha came back from the hen’s night, my parents feigned a story that they might be changing their plans to visit a friend in Toronto, and Sasha of course suggested that they should visit Boston since they’d be so close; plus it was her dad’s 50th birthday that weekend, so my parents would be able to attend that, too! Mum feigned a response of being too much trouble, but the next morning, said that it’d be possible because a family friend was able to change their flights back to Sydney to a different date at little cost. Of course, all that had already been done the night before…
And then came the problem of The Ring. My family actually has a diamond that was left specifically for the person whom I marry, so my parents and I were scheming about how to try to transport the ring over here before the Boston weekend. We deemed it too difficult to try to accomplish, so I’d get her another gift (such as another ring, necklace, etc) so that we could give her the ring later. I was lamenting about this idea to Jaclyn Madden, one of Sasha’s friends, when she suggested “Hey, you know, you can always make a ring…”
For those who don’t know, Jaclyn’s quite the handiwoman. As in, she makes her own furniture—-beds, sofas, tables, you name it. So she can clearly make a ring, but I’d done nothing like that before. Nevertheless, she convinced me it was possible, and got so excited that she actually made about 40 prototypes out of aluminumaluminium. After a few days or experimenting, Jaclyn & I decided that it was a feasible idea and ordered the parts from a jewellery parts dealer in Oakland. I took a vacation day off work to head down to Jaclyn’s place and banged out the ring.
After that, we prepared for the Boston weekend, all still unbeknownst to Sasha. I had planned to propose to her on the Saturday, but my dad said that it’d steal some thunder from her dad’s birthday that day, so we decided to leave it until Sunday. Meanwhile, I learned to speak a sentence of Russian in preparation for her dad’s surprise 50th birthday party; we staged a scene from Charles Dickens’s The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, and we had a wonderful time and a very Russian dinner (i.e. lots of speeches, dancing, and wonderful food) at her dad’s birthday celebration.
So it was Saturday night (or Sunday morning) at around 1am when I learnt that Sasha was planning to take out my parents to Cambridge for all of Sunday; I was hoping to propose at the home with both families there, so this was putting quite a damper on my plans. (Of course, I learnt later that all guys run into problems with their proposal plans, and I ended up being comparatively lucky!) And so, with my mum hand-signalling me to do the proposal tomorrow and my dad telling me to do it RIGHT NOW, I decided that it was going to be on Sunday, September 18, 2011, at the cheery time of 1:30am, when I’d propose to the love of my life. I got down on one knee in board shorts, while Sasha and her family were mostly in pyjamas, and that was that. It was at that point we unveiled the deception and scheming to her, and she exclaimed “Oh God, is this what I’m marrying into?!”
