As I said, she works for the company we bought the ring from, so there was no real way to keep this a secret from her. That being said, I think that whole secrecy bit is pure fiction, or at least few and far between. That whole thing about a guy going out and dropping money on a ring only to get shot down, probably happens less now than ever. We'd been musing about it for a while, and it wasn't until late August when she messaged me about finding a diamond that she liked.
It is lab grown, the weight she wanted (little over a carat) and had the right color and clarity that she was looking for. She had known the right she was after for years, not even joking. When she was on the sales floor, she had this ring in mind.
We got our ducks in a row and waited patiently, even took a trip up to the cabin as we did last year around this time. I actually hoped to ask her up there, but alas the ring was not in from the designer yet.
I mean come on, look at how nice it was up there.
Anyway, that trip came and went, and Friday night I booked us at a restaurant where we had gone early on in our relationship. In hindsight we were way too casually dressed that first time, and the place was not as reasonably priced as my brother had told me so it was a stretch at 21. This time, much better. We had dinner, I freaked her out because I had been joking about having a waiter put the ring in a glass of champagne, but thought better of it . She actually told me when I got up from the table that I better not be having the staff do anything. I didn't.
We went over to an overlook of Downtown Saint Paul and I asked her there. She said yes, putting to rest those nagging voices in my head that this was the most elaborate troll I'd ever experienced personally, and yeah. I have a fiancee. No concrete plans as a of yet, things would likely be a couple years out, but that was my weekend. This was all bookended by dealing with a slew of facebook notifications, and visits to and from immediate family. Socially, I am exhausted but I am a pretty happy nerd otherwise.
The actual ring, at breakfast on Sunday