Today is Elysha and my engagement anniversary!
Eighteen years ago today, I proposed marriage to the woman I love, and she miraculously accepted.
Kind of.
Happily, the day of our engagement remains clear in my memory, partly because it was such a perfect day and partly because when we arrived home that night, I immediately wrote down everything I could remember to never forget it.
Here is what I wrote:
On December 28, 2004, I asked my wife to marry me. My goal was to propose in a way that she would never forget.
Here is the story:
Elysha’s favorite room in the world is the main room in Grand Central Terminal in New York City. She adores everything about the room – the iconic clock, the constellation-filled ceiling, the architecture, and its history. This, combined with the likelihood that it will remain standing for a long time, made it the perfect location for the proposal.
I also wanted the proposal to be a complete surprise, so I chose December 28, between Christmas and New Year’s Day and less than two weeks before her birthday. I figured that if Elysha suspected a proposal, she might expect it to happen on Christmas, New Year’s Eve, or her birthday, so deliberately avoiding those three days would increase the chance of a surprise.
Elysha had also told me months prior that no one had ever thrown her a surprise party, and she hinted that she would like me to throw one for her someday. So I told her that I would plan a surprise party for her very next birthday and would still manage to surprise her despite the forewarning.
She doubted me.
My plan was simple:
After she agreed to marry me, I’d tell Elysha that the marriage proposal counted as her surprise party. Ten days after the proposal, I’d surprise her again with a birthday party that I was already planning at a friend’s home. So, in the midst of planning a marriage proposal, I was also planning her surprise birthday party.
It was a busy time for me.
It worked, by the way. On her birthday, we arrived at the home of our friends, Justine and Charles, for what Elysha thought would be a simple dinner for four. She managed to walk halfway into a room filled with people before even noticing them. When we shouted, “Surprise!” she was most definitely surprised.
But before all of that, I needed to execute the perfect engagement.
First, I needed a reason to be in New York City on the day of the proposal, so I enlisted the support of Elysha’s sister, Emily, who helped me tremendously. Two weeks before the proposal, Emily called and asked us to come into the city that day. She also arranged for a luncheon at Ruby Foos following the engagement.
I planned to propose to Elysha on the top steps of Grand Central, overlooking the famous clock and the throng of holiday shoppers and tourists who were sure to be jamming the place that day. Embedded within that mass of travelers and holiday shoppers would be our friends and family, remaining hidden amongst the crowd to watch the proposal and then surprise Elysha with their presence.
This required a lot of coordination. Emily and our friend, Cindy, were instrumental in this task. First, I had to get word to everyone I wanted to invite, ensuring they maintained absolute secrecy from anyone not invited until after the proposal. We had to arrange for these people (22 in all) to be on a train from New Haven prior to the train that Elysha and I would be traveling on, and we also had to ensure that they would be out of the New Haven terminal before Elysha and I arrived.
We also had people living in New York City coming in for the proposal, as well as one family on their way home from Washington, DC, who would be stopping at Grand Central to join us. Coordinating the timing and placement of these people in the terminal was quite a challenge, particularly in 2004, when texting on a cell phone was still a distant future.
I assembled a committee of four of Elysha’s friends to purchase the engagement ring. While she was in an after-school meeting at work, the committee convened in the classroom of one of these friends. While I kept a watchful eye on the hallway, these women went online to choose the perfect ring based on the specifications I had gleaned from Elysha over the previous year and their knowledge of her.
Once they were all in agreement, they purchased the ring and had it shipped to another colleague’s home for safekeeping.
Delegation, people. Never underestimate it.
All was in place when Elysha and I left the house on the morning of December 28, 2004. Plans were finalized, reservations for lunch were set, and the diamond was stuffed deep into my coat pocket.
Of course, nothing ever goes perfectly.
About 15 minutes from the station, Cindy called. While I pretended to be speaking to my mother, Cindy informed me that my friend, Jeff, was running late (almost certainly because of his wife) and might still be in the New Haven terminal when Elysha and I arrived. I purposely took a wrong turn off the exit to add time to our trip and was immediately berated by Elysha for doing so.
Upon arriving at the New Haven terminal, I discovered that MetroNorth had unexpectedly added another train to their schedule:
An express train that would put us in New York just minutes behind the train our friends were already riding. Elysha saw the earlier train on the schedule and suggested we take it.
This was not good.
I knew that Cindy and Emily would need time to position everyone in the terminal, and a few minutes might not be enough. Thinking fast, I explained to Elysha that Emily was expecting us on the later train, and since we had time to kill, we could get some breakfast and relax for once in our lives since we were usually sprinting to make every train we had ever taken.
She agreed, and the potential disaster was averted.
Trouble raised its ugly head again about halfway to New York when a train in front of us broke down, forcing our train back to Bridgeport to switch tracks. Our trip was extended by 45 minutes, which was fine for me, but I began driving Elysha batty. The last thing I wanted before my proposal was a frustrated future fiancée staring me in the face. Thankfully, a New York magazine crossword kept her busy enough to remain sane, or else things might have been ugly.
As she attempted to decipher the clues to the crossword, I went to the bathroom to call Cindy and warn her of the delay.
The last bit of trouble occurred upon arriving at the station. Because we had been switched to an alternate track, our train arrived somewhere in the bowels of Grand Central, on a track that Elysha and I had never seen before. Our friends and family had been positioned with the expectation that we would arrive at a specific track number, and now I had no idea where we might emerge into the station. And because we were deep underground when we arrived, I had no cell phone service to warn Cindy.
All she knew was that Elysha was wearing an orange coat.
Thankfully, that turned out to be enough.
As we stepped into the station, I grabbed Elysha’s hand and pulled her toward the stairs, aware that our friends could be anywhere. I told her that I wanted to show her something. She rolled her eyes and followed. Someone in our group of friends spotted the orange coat climbing the stairs, and everyone was watching as we reached the precipice. At the top of the stairs, amongst a throng of people, I stopped Elysha and turned her toward me.
The dialogue that took place was as follows:
Me: I chose this place because I know it’s your favorite room in the world.
Elysha: Huh?
Me: And I wanted a place that would always be here so that someday we could show our kids, so…could you hold my book?
I had a book in my hand and wasn’t smooth enough to drop it to the floor. Elysha took the book, and I removed the ring box from my pocket. Just then, a police officer stepped between us.
Police officer: Please keep moving. You can’t block the stairway.
A second later, she saw the ring box and smiled.
Police officer: Oh! (stepping back)
Me: (Dropping to one knee)
Elysha: (Starting to cry)
Me: (On one knee) Elysha Green, I love you with all my heart and want to spend the rest of my life with you. (Opening the ring box) Will you marry me?
Elysha: (Starting crying and reaching out to hug me, never answering the question)
Screams erupted in the distance. It was our friends, shouting with joy, then immediately surrounded by National Guard soldiers.
Me: That’s all of our friends screaming, honey…
Elysha: (Continuing to cry)
That day, the country was on threat level ultra-bad red, so the military was on high alert. When two dozen people erupted into cheers, the soldiers sprung into action, immediately surrounding the source of the disturbance. After assuring the National Guard that they weren’t preparing to commit an act of terrorism, our friends began racing up the stairs, with the principal of our school, Plato Karafelis (who would officiate our wedding two years later), in the lead, shouting and pumping his fist.
Elysha: Is that Plato?
Then a moment later…
Elysha: Oh my God. Where did you all come from?
The rest of the day was perfect. After the proposal, we all enjoyed lunch at Ruby Foos and then went down to Rockefeller Center to check out the tree and take our photo beneath it. Snow was lightly falling, the streets were abuzz with holiday shoppers, and things could not have been more beautiful.
It was a perfect ending to a perfect day.
Elysha, however, has yet to answer my question.
This past summer, I finally kept that promise by bringing Charlie to the very spot where I had proposed to Elysha 18 years earlier. He stood on the spot overlooking Grand Central and said, “Good choice, Dad.”
