One Post to Rule Them All...

Well my friends, this may be the most widely publicized post of my blogging career, so I'd best make it a good one. I make a point not to tout intensely personal events on an open Internet forum (statistics classes and license plates don't count), but I do have to shamelessly utilize my trusty asiankeng domain once and for all for public consumption to finally tell the world... I Am Engaged To Be Married!

There, I said it.

That being said, with the multiple requests for The Story (aka How He Did It), I am finally publishing The Longest Post Ever (even surpassing Guster of yore) with all the nitty gritty details.

Many of you upon receiving the news shook your heads (as I had expected) and asked, "Jen's dating someone?!" For those, I assure you that I have not been keeping secrets or, as Fiance (Matt) says, "I'm your secret shame", and know that the diaspora of DC dating has trained me well to keep any romantic news to myself. It is a fascinating anthropological study to examine how, at the whiff of a 'dating' attachment, the general LDS single (and non-single) population of DC turns you into their personal tabloid, with entitlements to hourly updates on your trek towards eternal bliss and a subscription to your nuptual newsfeed. False rumors run amok and you spend more time disputing hearsay than actually dating. ("No, I'm not engaged." "No, I'm not pregnant." "No, he didn't propose to my cousin.") So, for those of you not in the know, please don't feel that I've purposely left you out. Not even those in my own professional office of four years knew I was seeing anyone.

By way of brief introduction, Matt is pretty much the coolest male in my age/dating bracket I've ever met. Graduate student of peace and conflict resolution (hello! No domestic arguments!), traveler to approximately 25 countries, speaker of Spanish AND Mandarin, non-picky eater of all foods (one of my requirements), lover of all people, shameless karaoke singer, and avid Latin dancer. Chops wood when he's stressed and ran his own radio show in college. Hot. :)

We've had a pretty normal, average relationship: met at church, spoke a few times, saw each other a few times at parties, blah blah. Started dating, started to like each other, enjoyed where it was going, some months down the line decided that marriage was an option, then decided that marriage was an optimal choice. So while the proposal was a complete shock, the idea of marriage was not, thankfully.

And finally, How He Did It:

We had gone up to Rochester on the weekend of October 3-5 with the specific intent for him to ask my father's permission for marriage. As it is a custom not familiar to Chinese people, I'd had to call my parents ahead of time and warn them/explain to them what Matt intended to do. My mother didn't quite understand why she couldn't be there (which we did tell her she could), but she promised to stay out of the way. Matt had prepared a little speech in Mandarin from his Chinese teacher in college and practiced it over and over. With brave heart he obtained permission from my father and approval from my mother, and that was that. I had always been convinced that he would propose sometime in November; he had told me on several occasions that he didn't have a ring, he had to take out a loan, he hadn't found the perfect one... lies! All lies!! But I suppose acceptable in this one circumstance.

I suppose we did things a little backwards; we spent the weekend reserving a time in the temple to be married, we met with a photographer, we scoured Rochester for reception sites. Sunday afternoon as we headed home we decided to stop at beautiful Letchworth Park, a NY State park 35 miles south of Rochester. As we traipsed about taking pictures, Matt insisted we get one of ourselves. I said "sure, well why don't we just ask one of these fifteen people milling about to take one?" "no no, let's set up our tripod." "Okay, perfect, we can use this remote control shutter I bought!" "no no, let's set the self timer." "...okay, well, we've got 2 seconds, 5 seconds... 2 seconds should be enough time, right?" "no no, 5 seconds is good, let's do 5 seconds."

At this point I think I remember being a little confused at his insistence of doing things apart from how we'd normally go about it, but I also figured that since he doesn't usually insist on these types of things (that's normally my job) that it wouldn't hurt to indulge him. He stood in the shot for me to set it up, I set the timer, dashed over to the wall, grinned at the camera... and then this photo was taken:


Yes my friends, as I was still posing for the camera (as evidenced by my big cheesy grin) he dropped to one knee and blurted out "Will you marry me?!" and then the camera went off. He claims he said something else but he doesn't remember, neither do I believe him since he had about 2.1 seconds to pull it off. These were the thoughts going through my head:

"What's he doing? Is that a ring? What? Is this an engagement ring?? But he said he didn't have one! Did he borrow one? Is he being serious? I CAN'T BELIEVE HE'S DOING THIS IN FRONT OF ALL THESE PEOPLE...."

It took him several times proposing (he got pretty good at it) before I could compose myself enough to say yes, much to the delight of the watching audience, who clapped and oohed and aahed and took pictures and basically mortified me... but oh well, I'm engaged, deal. :)

And that is The Story. The end.

More pictures of the weekend can be seen here. Pictures of The Precious can be seen here. Questions, comments, praise on Matt's ingenious proposal can be left on comments sections below.

Thank you for all of the congratulations and support I (we) have received and we really are excited to have you share in this very happy time with us!