Aruba, Part 4: The Engagement!

Jun 25, 2008 | Tags: Aruba, Daily

I know the engagement is old news for many of you, but I wanted this post to be included in my Aruba vacation series. Better now than never!

Jeff and I hailed an Aruban taxi to the Flying Fishbone restaurant, a charming, rustic restaurant hidden away from the busy tourist areas.  The place was awesome and worth it!  If you ever go to Aruba, go to the Flying Fishbone for an amazing dinner experience.  We had a table literally on the ocean’s edge.  Our feet were in the water.  Our chairs sank in the sand, making us feel like little children sitting at a big table.

After we finished our dinner and dessert, Jeff asked the waitress to take our picture together at the table.  We gave her the camera, and as she backed up to take the picture, Jeff got up off his chair, moved the champagne stand aside, and kneeled on one knee into the water and sand.  Initially, I thought he was trying to pose for the picture.  WRONG!  He said, “Sarah, I have to tell you something before this relationship continues.”  I realized right away what he was doing as soon as he said that, because when he first declared he loved me, he said the exact same line.  While I was holding my breath and in complete shock, he then took a ring from his pocket and held it up to me.  ”I want to marry you. Will you marry me?”  The waitress with the camera had no idea what was going on; she must have been caught off guard!  Bless her, though, because she did snap a few!

After a stream of me saying, “What are you doing?” and “You’re kidding!” and “Seriously?” he finally asked, “Is that a yes?”  I got myself together and gave a definite “Yes!”  We smooched, and then we realized the entire restaurant was watching us.  We were giving everyone a show!!  There were camera flashes, and they weren’t only from the waitress with our camera. Thank god for that, because a fellow diner behind us got some really great photos of the engagement, which I’ll forever be grateful for.  I exchanged email addresses with the awesome lady so she could send me the photos she took. True to her word, she sent me the photos. Most of the pictures here, though, are from her, and they rock! I loved how she or he took a picture of us before the engagement even happened, and they didn’t even know it would happen!

As the evening wound down and we prepared to leave, people from throughout the restaurant came up to us to say their congratulations.  Even when I went to the bathroom, women in the bathroom were asking to see the ring and telling me congratulations!

See the dress I am wearing in the pictures?  That dress has gone through some rejections throughout the past year and a half.  You see, I bought it a year and a half ago, but never wore it until the engagement night.  I took the dress with me on many trips, but never felt comfortable wearing it.  I only wore it for about 10 minutes in Ocean City, Maryland.  I had a sneaking suspicion that Jeff was going to propose to me in Aruba, it was just a matter of when.  Since the Flying Fishbone was very romantic, I had an inkling it would happen there.  As I was getting ready in the bathroom before going to the restaurant, I noticed through the mirror that Jeff was checking on me.  I had two dresses to choose from: the one I wore and a coral colored dress.  Trust me, I was hella debating on which dress to wear.  But, once I saw Jeff checking on to see what I was doing (which was when he was transferring the ring from the box to his wallet), I suddenly decided that maybe the old dress would finally serve a purpose.  Boy, it sure did! Of course, it’s not the dress that made us engaged. The dress has no relation to Jeff’s decision to propose and it definitely has nothing to do with me saying yes.  Just a funny story!

We’re excited for this new chapter in our lives!

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