Taylor-LeighI love reading about people’s love stories, so here is my engagement story!
I get so emotional at the thought of getting married. In fact, I tear up when I see random people get engaged, or when I see people’s wedding video. It’s kind of ironic because I have always been the kind of person to say that marriage is a legal agreement and that you don’t need to be married to be in a committed relationship. I get emotional because I see people so in love and choosing to commit to each other ~officially~. My partner and I have decided that we would like to get married as a sacred commitment to each other. The only thing to do now is to fully accept and embrace it!
The story goes a little something like this…
Pre-proposal: finding the ring
I knew for a few months that Rudy (my partner) was going to propose. I had actually thought of proposing myself! Screw gender roles. We both wear the pants equally!
It was just a matter of who would do it first.
I knew because we had found my Grandmother’s engagement ring when we were cleaning out her house in New Jersey over a year prior. Because of the expense and the unethical diamond industry, I had never really wanted a ring, let alone a diamond. But when I saw it, I knew it was something I wanted to be passed down to me because of the sentimental value. It even has my grandparents’ initials engraved inside!
Since my mother and I take care of my grandma, I brought my grandma’s bag of jewelry back to my mother’s house in Virginia, ring and all.
Every so often, my grandmother would ask for her jewelry and want to see the ring. We did this a few times until one day, I got the bag, and the ring was gone.
I asked my mom if she knew where the ring was. Her response was “I do not have it at the moment.” I found this response funny because I knew at that moment that Rudy had the ring. This meant the proposal was coming.
The waiting game
Rudy would ask questions about being proposed to, like what kind of situation I would want it to happen around, and what I would want in a ring. I got the idea that he was going to have my grandmother’s ring rearranged into something different, and that it might take a while. Therefore, I gave up on expecting him to propose, realizing it may take at least a couple of months.
Later, I found out that he had been carrying around the ring with him to special events like my birthday, Christmas gatherings, a New Years’ dance. Nothing ever happened. The question had not been popped.
Our trip to El Salvador
Then in January, we took a trip to El Salvador to visit Rudy’s family. This was a big deal because it was my first “vacation” away from caring for my grandmother in almost two years. Additionally, it was my first time meeting Rudy’s family, and his first time visiting them in almost three years. Thanks Covid-19.
By that point, the proposal had not been on my mind to come from Rudy. I, on the other hand, had the idea of asking him, only without a ring, simply he and I. Little did I know that we would not have any alone time while on our trip! Don’t get me wrong, I loved getting to know his family, spending time with them, and getting to practice my Spanish!
The day of
On the first full day in El Salvador, Rudy’s nearly entire family and I went to El Boqueron National Park, located at the top of the capital city of San Salvador. In addition to the abundance of natural foliage, the park includes a mild hike up to overlook the Quezaltepeque volcano. We took our time hiking to the top, admiring the plants and taking photos (of course).
When we got to the top, there were two levels. Rudy went all the way to the tippy top with the mirador, or overlook. I stayed on the level below for a little while, playing with the kids, looking around, and taking pictures with the family.
The proposal!
I then left the group to join Rudy at the top. My first reaction was how peaceful it was! It was so vast, serene, and filled with silence. The rest of the family shortly followed, and Rudy asked his sister to take our picture as a couple. Nothing was out of the ordinary. But I did notice that Rudy had a kind of nervous energy about him.
After giving his sister his phone to take our picture, a few more family members pulled out their phone cameras. I noticed a light on one that indicates a video is being recorded. After posing for our “picture,” Rudy turned to me and my heart did a backflip. I knew what was coming!
He turned to me and said that he had a question for me, so by then it was obvious! He said something about how beautiful the view was, but not as beautiful as me. I later learned that all the words he had planned to say were completely gone! We all laughed when he shared that with us.
Rudy’s cuñado, or brother-in-law handed him a box that had apparently been secured in his pocket for safekeeping! Rudy kneeled down on one knee, opened the box, and asked me to marry him. By then I was in tears. I turned to his family and asked ustedes saben? Did you all know? Most of them said no they didn’t know he was planning to ask me, except for his sister and brother-in-law.
The answer
By then his family was on edge, what was the answer to the question?! I hadn’t even realized I hadn’t answered yet! Of course in my mind it was a resounding yes, duh. But they all wanted to hear it! So naturally, I still didn’t say yes. I nodded my head, still in tears. *face palm*
I felt so happy that it finally happened in this beautiful country surrounded by his loving family. Yet I also felt flustered about not saying YES or SI loud and proud, even though I felt it in my heart! I felt like I looked like a mess, but that just showed how the proposal happened naturally and unexpectedly.
I didn’t wear the ring for the rest of our trip because it was broken and too big for my finger. Additionally, I felt weird wearing a diamond ring around his family in which marriage was not common. I also didn’t want to be a target for theft in El Salvador.
Rudy told me if I wanted to get it altered or fixed, that we could do it together. He said he had been waiting for a moment that felt “right,” and this was it!
Post-proposal
On the way down from the volcano, we stopped a few times to buy ginger and tamarind candy from a few families selling off the side of the steep hill, no big deal.
Along the same road, we stopped at Picnic Steak House, not for the food, but for the giant rainbow lego-looking slide! Fun fact: Apparently, the Imagine Slide was trending on Tiktok. It was $5 to go down, and ironically was not for children under a certain height! At 5’2″ I barely made the cut. Being the big kids that we are, Rudy and I went down with his (our) niece. It was a fun thing to do while riding the newly engaged high!
We enjoyed the rest of the week being blissfully engaged together with his family.
What about my fiancĂ©’s kids?
As a caregiver who writes about blending our family, among other topics, you may be wondering, what about the kids? That was my first question too. Did the kids know? They sure did! As soon as Rudy had the ring and knew he wanted to ask me, he told his kids, and asked how they felt about it. Being the cool kids that they are, they had assumed we would get married, and were on board. In fact, they wanted to be a part of the proposal!
I had told Rudy that I wanted a proposal like a musical, like the scene in 500 Days of Summer where Joseph Gordon Levitt sings You Make My Dreams by Hall & Oates. I wanted to be carried on people’s shoulders and have them dance around me while birds sing. Yes, I am a cheeseball. But as a dancer and lover of musical theatre, I deserve to be. As does everyone. Because life is meant to be full of the most joy!
Rudy’s kids went to town thinking of making up a song and dance to be a part of the proposal. Rudy even looked into hiring a flash mob to dance around us! A flash mob apparently costs a lot of money, and Rudy knew I would have been upset if he spent that kind of money, especially since I didn’t even want to buy an expensive ring!
The kids were on board, and even happy about us getting married, so I felt relieved.
Back to reality
As real and alive as I felt in El Salvador, it was not our current reality, and so we came back home to the United Sates. I would LOVE to live in El Salvador though! Hopefully we will in the next couple of years. *wink*
It was back to caregiving full-time for me, and back to work and kids for Rudy.
I write this two months post-engagement, so we are pretty deep into wedding planning.
Looming in the air is the question of when I will live with Rudy full-time. Currently, I live mostly with my mother to take care of my grandma, and partly with Rudy. It is overwhelming to think about navigating this transition, especially when we are married in four months. I know, quick turnaround! We are just taking it one day at a time. Maybe we don’t have to move in together as soon as we are married. After all, nothing is conventional about our relationship anyways.
Read more about how we navigate a romantic relationship while being separate caregivers.
