The moment of truth has arrived. Now to save you the bother of reading all the way through (of course I’d appreciate it if you did, we have cookies), I will give you the answer that you have all been waiting for:

She said YES.

I am now (to be verified by the Guinness Book of World Records) the happiest man alive. Now, because I need to keep a semblance of interest now that I am officially a groom-to-be I will start with revealing a bit more about myself. I know this is actually what you all have been waiting for after all…

At this point I was so nervous I had to laugh at everything

My name’s Dan Woodward and I live with my better half, Sharon, in Surrey. We have normal jobs, have pretty normal lives (I like to think) and pay our taxes, get drunk, and watch the rest of our friends grown up much quicker than we seem to be!

Now seems like a good point to show you that in fact I am not a Crash Test Dummy with a top hat, and am, in fact, a real human being. So, there we go (right):

The big reveal; although now I feel that this was a bit of an anti-climax and I apologise to all of the ladies out there who were hoping for a new lust object now that Brad Pitt has grown a beard and turned into a bit of a hobo.

The Big Proposal

So, the proposal – to be honest I am not sure if I will be giving you the full story if I started with a description of yesterday. This story actually begins about July / August when I had worked out what I wanted to do with the ring (I have some posts coming up which goes into this in more detail). My dilemma came in actually thinking of how I wanted to do this.

The ring-making process was going to take 4 – 6 weeks, so I knew I had a defined window in which to decide. So to start with I covered off the more obvious subjects: Dinner in the OXO Tower, London Eye. These were both very nice, but as I had just committed a bunch of cash on the ring, I was honestly not in any fit state to be able to do these more expensive things as well.

Next up were days of research to hunt down more secluded spots in London to drop to one knee. The problem with these, and those above was that frankly I don’t plan ANYTHING for us to do on weekends on a regular basis. My job is a project manager, so I spend my life making decisions, ironing out kinks, and generally being responsible. Weekends are a time for me to let go a bit and let myself get carried away with the current a bit.

Due to this fact anything out of the ordinary was going to be a bit of an obvious signpost to Sharon. I started getting pretty much stumped. Especially as Sharon is my best friend, and would normally be my first call to discuss any of these quandaries. So, I sat down over a couple of nights to rethink my options, and slowly a plan began to form.

I tried to put myself in Sharon’s shoes (far too small and incredibly difficult to walk in) and work out what would be “right” for her. I went through many many options and finally managed to narrow it down to a handful of key criteria: It had to be thoughtful, it had to reflect her personality, and it had to make her the centre of attention.

Just how I did that, I’ll cover in the next post!

Dan, your Stag Test Dummy

Related Posts:

• She Said Yes (Part 2)
• What Do You Say When You Propose?
• One Ring To Rule Them Both
• Engagement Rings And Proposals Abroad: Part Deux
• Blowing The Doors Off