If you need to catch up, here are Episodes I and III.
Okay, so I’ve known all along that I wanted to get approval from Stef’s folks before I popped the question. I realize this is something of an old-fashioned custom, but I just wouldn’t have felt right about proposing without talking to Tim and Teri first.
Well, about a week before Stef’s birthday this year, I tried to set up a secret lunch with the Spiros so we could “talk about birthday ideas.” Unfortunatley, that little scheme fell through because Teri was out of town at a convention, and I was in the middle of the budget week from hell, so it never worked out to pop the question as part of Stef’s birthday weekend.
The backup plan suggested by my mom was to shoot for Sweetest Day, since there would be a nice tie-in that Stef probably wouldn’t be expecting. Since I don’t make it over to Bloomfield during the week very often, that meant I had to do it the weekend of October 13-14. Of course, the other hiccup was that Saturday we had Marina’s surprise 30th birthday party, and I didn’t want to talk to Tim and Teri while they had a big party to worry about.
That meant my only chance was to do it on Sunday morning before Stef woke up. I woke up at around 8:30, and could already hear Teri going up and down the stairs to the basement while she was cleaning up from the party. I snuck down and offered to “help,” and after a minute or so I asked if she could go grab Tim because there was something I wanted to talk about. They came down a few minutes later, and we had our little chat.
I was pretty nervous about the whole thing, but they gave me a really positive response and said I had their permission to propose, of course, so we stayed downstairs and chatted for a while. After they agreed to keep all of this a secret for the next week, I went upstairs to wake up Stefy for the day.
Okay, so fast forward a couple hours. We had already gone out to the Pancake House for breakfast and returned to the house. Teri was at Church, and Tim was upstairs.
Stefy and I walked into the living room, and she saw the paper sitting on the coffee table with one article sticking out on top. Here’s an excerpt from the article (originally printed in the Boston Globe):
Reviving a tradition that seemingly went the way of the flapper and Prohibition, young men like Hunt these days are talking to their intendeds’ parents before popping the question. While there are no numbers to track the trend, call a bridal store or wedding venue or otherwise inquire among the betrothed and the newlywed and their parents and it is easy to find examples. Jenna Bush’s fiancé, Henry Hager, reportedly had a private tête-à-tête with her father, the president, before he proposed one summer morning at sunrise atop Cadillac Mountain in Maine. What these young men embrace as a gesture of courtesy and respect has roots in an era when women had few rights and little opportunity.
Hunt, a 25-year-old salesman from Attleboro, has long known that Stefanie Brennock, whose parents are divorced, expected that anyone who wanted to marry her would talk to them first. ‘‘It’s just the parents handing over the daughter to a new guy and taking care of me,’’ says Brennock, 24, an assistant manager at a bridal store.
The evening before he took Brennock to Newport, Hunt dined with her father. ‘‘It was an out-of-body experience. My soul was looking down at the table,’’ Hunt says. ‘‘I’d prepared what I wanted to say. But looking back I don’t remember saying it. It just started coming out.’’ Later that night, Hunt shared the news with Brennock’s mother.
Okay, so what are the chances an article like this would run in the Detroit Free Press on that day, of all days? And the bride in the story would be named Stefanie, with an f? Crazy, right?
Well, as soon as Stef saw that article she picked it up and was like, “what is this doing here?” I said she must’ve put it there on purpose, and tried to blow it off. I think it worked, because she never mentioned it again.
So a while later we were getting ready to head out to the mall, and Tim pulled me aside and said he had put something in my suitcase. I asked him if it was that article, and he said it was. It wasn’t until I got home later that night that I read the short note he wrote on the paper for me:
“Zack, you must have read the paper this morning. Thanks for following tradition. Tim.”
Actually, having that story run on that particular day was just dumb luck, but my momma didn’t raise no fool. For something as big as a marriage proposal, you should always try to follow tradition.
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