I am going to start off by talking about the proposal. I always wanted to propose to Urmila in a romantic way and was waiting for the right opportunity.
The Date: Since, it was kind of decided that we would get married early next year, I did not have much time left. Sometime during the summer of 2009, I decided that I would propose to her on her Birthday which is on Sept 1st. As it happened, Urmila went to Seattle for a couple of weeks and was coming back to Germantown only by Sept 4th and so that was the day I chose for the proposal.
The Ring: Having never shopped for jewelery in my life, I had no clue how I needed to go about it. I started with the most unlikely of places, a radio ad for Mervis Diamonds. I went to their website and checked out their collection. I did not want to be hasty about it and so using google maps I made a quick survey of all the jewelery stores close to my house and then I started reading reviews for these stores and technical details about picking up diamonds (the videos on mervis' site helped). Co-incidentally, Mervis Diamonds seemed like the best place to shop for the ring, they had some really good reviews and their online collection suggested that they had the better set of diamonds for similar price range when compared to the other stores. So as soon as Urmila left for Seattle, the very next day I was in Mervis' Rockville store.Even though I hadn't been to many jewelery stores before, I was surprised by how Mervis operated. At Mervis you are made to sit in small cubicles and the diamonds and the settings are brought to you for inspection instead of you looking at a display. Michelle Axelrod was the salesperson who assisted me and within a short period we narrowed down our options to what I could afford. Disappointingly this was a yellow gold ring with a platinum head and a 0.5 C diamond. I had definitely hoped for much more, at least for a complete platinum setting but then I had to reconcile with my current financial situation . Having given the order I came back home, still feeling not too happy about the ring. I was pretty convinced that I had seen an all platinum setting on Mervis' website that fit my budget. So on coming back home and doing some research I did find a platinum setting I liked which was listed at an unusually low price. To cut the long story short, Mervis had made an error while listing the setting and so I got the platinum setting for the same cost as the other setting. :) I got the ring for half its actual value and more importantly this was the ring I felt Urmila deserved. :)
The Venue: This was the next big decision. I wanted everything to be perfect but there was a big constraint while booking a place. Urmila was flying in at 10pm and unfortunately most places in and around my home would have closed soon after. I always wanted to make the proposal personal and so I decided that I will organize it in my apartment and cook all her favourite food. So everyday I came home after work and worked on decorating my room, one piece at a time. I got some helium balloons, some buntings, stuck some photographs on the wall. Tried to make the best out of the limited space that I had. I was kind of hoping Urmila would love the setting as she has always been a person with simple tastes.The Food: Deciding food for the event was easier. Urmila had told me once that she would like a dinner consisting of Sweet corn soup, Lasagna and chilli corn. Though this was dated, I felt she would still like these things. So that's what she was going to get for the proposal. Added to this I planned to make her current favourite, Falafel with some Tzatziki. Only issue; I hadn't made any of these dishes ever in my life. So, I googled around for the recipes and also got all the ingredients the previous day itself. Ground the falafel paste the day before the D-Day and cut a few vegetables and stuff to make sure I get done in time. For dessert I ordered a cake with her favourite cartoon character Calvin on it (She always claimed to want to eat Calvin, him being so cute).
D-Day: Sept 4th finally arrived. I came back early from work and picked up some roses on the way. Unfortunately the flower lady was not arround to wrap it up in a neat way for me and I did not have enough time to rush to another florist. So I had to improvise the packing a little and hoped that she wouldn't throw it back at me.
I came home soon after that and started preparing all the dishes. I was most tensed about the lasagna. Having had a fair share of bad lasagnas, I did not want to mess it up. Thankfully there weren't anymore hiccups and I left in time to receive her at the airport. She knew that I would have planned something for her birthday but she had no idea what it was going to be. I reached the baggage area early and was impatiently waiting for her. Finally after much delay (or so it seemed) she arrived in the baggage area, she saw me being formally dressed and with flowers and she instantly knew something was up. As we were driving home, she could not stop speculating about what I had planned for dinner. We came home and covered her eyes and walked her into the room. It seemed like she liked the setting, so that gave me some confidence for the rest of the proposal. I started bringing in the food one after the other and I must admit that I managed to surprise her with every one of them. I was glad that she liked everything and I thanked my stars that I didn't mess up any of them. At the end of the dinner, I got the cake out and she did like the idea of eating Calvin. :)
So until this point she was under the impression that this was all her birthday celebration. Then came the moment, I acted as if something had fallen on the ground, got down on one knee and popped the ring box open. I did have some stuff rehearsed to tell her but the girl just went berserk after seeing the ring. She was so excited seeing the ring that everything else seemed to have faded into oblivion (including me). I had to literally ask her hand to put the ring on her fingers. :) The ring was a little big but I was glad that she loved it. We got it re-sized the next day. I was delighted that everything turned out perfect and that there were no major hiccups.
