It’s not just the holiday season, it’s wedding proposal season as well! To send you off into what is hopefully a wonderful Christmas weekend full of family and friends, here is one of the most thoughtful and romantic Christmastime wedding proposals we’ve ever heard!
The Proposal Story held a contest in which couples could submit their proposal stories for the chance to win a $1,000 gift certificate to Tiffany & Co (now that’s my kind of prize!). Here, via theproposalstory.com, is the winning story, and trust us, it’s worth reading!
12 Days of Christmas
by Michele Shams
The Beginning
Zach and I have been dating for 3 years and 4 months. We first met when a mutual friend introduced him to our group of friends. Back then, our whole group would hang out together every weekend and several times a week…so Zach and I got to know each other really well. Over the course of 6 months, he became one of my best friends. Never did I imagine that we would become more than that.
Months later, when he found out that my boyfriend-at-the-time and I had broken up, it didn’t take him long to profess how he “really” felt about me…that he felt it was more than just a friendship and that he had fallen hard. After the initial shock of his true feelings, I found that deep inside of me, I felt something strong for him too. We joked and said it was like Monica and Chandler from Friends. After a week of discussing the consequences, we decided to risk our friendship (along with the perfect dynamic of our circle of friends) and attempt dating. It was the best risk we had ever taken.
The Plan
Life with Zach has been exciting, fun, and filled with surprises. We have the kind of relationship where we just “get” each other. We never had to have the “so what are we” talk. Before he ever said he loved me, we both just felt it. I knew the strength of his feelings for me just by how he looked at me…and vice versa. When he finally did say the 3 little words, I already knew. The same goes for knowing that we found our life-partner. When I look into his eyes and he looks into mine, there’s not even a question…we want to grow old together.
About a year into our relationship, we were at a party and someone blurted out to both of us “So when are you two going to get married!!” …shocked at the candid question, Zach and I just looked at each other for a moment, and without even thinking I said… “Oh, sometime in the next 70 years”. He smiled…and with that look in his eyes, I knew that he felt the same.
Money has been tight lately. Zach and I both have dreams we hope to pursue in 2010, and so in November of 09, we decided to see a financial planner. We discussed that one day…perhaps 3-5 years from now we would eventually get married, so we wanted to get a head start on how to manage our finances properly. Because money was so tight, there was no way we would be able to get engaged or married anytime soon…or so I thought.
The Proposal
On December 11th, I woke up to 12 beautiful pink roses sitting on the counter with a card. Written in the card, Zach said he wanted to do something fun this year and give me THE 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS in reverse order… since we couldn’t spend a lot, they would be small but fun gifts representative for each day counting down till the day he and I celebrated Christmas before we left to visit our families. Zach is very much a romantic and he knows I love surprises. It really did not seem odd to me that he would concoct this for Christmas just to make it special since we could not really afford much.
Each morning, I would wake up, and eagerly run out to the kitchen to see what he thought of for that respective day. Some days it would be in the morning, but other days I wouldn’t get a gift until later. But boy, he sure put a lot of thought into each of the gifts. And so, here’s how the story goes:
On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… 12 beautiful pink roses.
On the 11th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… 11 singers singing. He made a mixed CD of 11 songs that reminded him of us.
On the 10th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… A 10-minute massage coupon. He knows how much I love massages…Plus, I’m always asking him for one.
On the 9th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… One portable purse hanger for tables. You see, we have traveled to 9 states in the US together, and I have rested my purse down in each. This gift represented where I’ve “hung” my purse with him, and now, I’ll have a place to hang it in the future.
On the 8th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… A new pair of jazz dance shoes…representing the perfect 8-count. I’m a dancer, and so, in dance, we use counts of 8 to keep step.
On the 7th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… A 7-inch sub from our favorite sub shop, Angie’s, in town. He actually drove 20 minutes from his work to go pick up our favorite subs, then drove another 45 minutes across town to come to my work under the guise that he was taking me to lunch. He had set everything up in my office cafe and when I got down there, he surprised me with all of it. We had a nice little lunch together sharing our favorite food.
On the 6th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… 3 Jaguar Football tickets. The number six is more significant then the gift. We love going to Jags games together, but the number 6 is significant of the date when Zach first professed how he felt about me.
On the 5th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… 5 Friends DVDs. We love the show, Friends.
On the 4th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… The 4 Christmas’s DVD. Since we both have divorced parents, we have to celebrate Christmas 4 times.
On the 3rd day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… A package of 3 golfing gloves. Zach’s great at golf, and I’m..well, not so great. But he takes the time to teach me and every so often take me out on the course. The last time we played, I forgot to bring gloves and wore my hands raw to the point where I couldn’t make it past the 15th hole. So, 3 gloves were a perfect gift.
On the 2nd day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… a hand-crafted earring hanger. He made it him self…it is beautifully crafted and I’m so proud of him for making it!
On the final day, December 22nd, I woke up to find one card on the tree. The card basically said that he was sending me on a scavenger hunt throughout the day to find the final present. There would be 11 clues…each one leading me to the next. He said the gift wasn’t really that big, it was more the hunt that was the fun part.
And so, off I went…the first 4 clues were hidden around the house. The next instruction would come via a text later in the day.
The text came while at work….it led me to my car where 3 more clues were hidden.
Then, at 5pm, right as I was about to leave work, the next clue came….I was to go to where we had our first date and pick up the next clue. That clue, then led me across town to where we took our first dancing lessons… which in turn then led me to where we had our first kiss. With one last clue left, I was to head to where Zach first fell for me (a local Irish bar down by the beach) and pick up the final clue.When I got to the bar, that clue said I had to go to one more place to get the gift. I walked outside to go to the next location and there Zach stood, on the corner right in front of the bar and he said the following…
“I have one final clue for you…now that you’ve received the 12 days of Christmas, you must re-read all the gifts you’ve gotten.”
The card he handed me had every gift he had given me the past 11 days in the form of the 12-Days-of-Christmas song…and on the last line, my eyes began to well-up…it read “And on the last day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… One diamond ring”
As I looked up from the card, Zach got down on one knee with tears in his eyes, and proposed. Strategically, he had proposed right near where we had first met (which was on the sidewalk across the street).
Needless to say, it will be out most memorable Christmas ever.
Tags: christmas proposal, engagement, theproposalstory contest, wedding proposal
