A few days after we’d told everyone we were engaged, we learned we hadn’t actually told everyone we were engaged. One of Evin’s cousins and two of my oldest friends found out via Facebook which left us scrambling. Ugh! This transgression necessitated several crow-eating phone calls, a lot of apologies, and a wee bit of lying.

They were insulted. People hate us! Yay! We’re getting married!

In less acrimonious news, Evin adored her ring and wanted to wear it everywhere except at work where the nature of her job made doing so difficult. But almost anywhere we went: to drop off our laundry,  a quick trip for take-out, even late one night to the bodega to get ice cream — front door locked, halfway down the stairs — Evin would say, “I want to go back and get the ring.”

“For the 300 foot walk to the corner?” I asked her.

“The Bodega Guy doesn’t care we’re engaged.”

But Evin did.

And I loved that she loved to show it off.

And I learned quickly how an engagement ring would elicit wildly enthusiastic responses from her female friends. Running errands around our neighborhood, we’d inevitably run into someone she had worked with, they’d notice the ring, scream, and I’d be prompted on cue to tell the comical proposal story. The sun was shining everyday; it was perpetually 76 degrees, with not a cloud in sight.  This was the Honeymoon Period of Our Engagement.  And it was overflowing with good times, laughing and with wedding plans far, far off in the distance.  Or so I thought.

Every 1.473 days, and with no provocation whatsoever, Evin would just look at me and ask: “so, no DJ?”

“Huh?”

“No DJ at the wedding.  We want a band, right?” 

The wedding plans were making a cameo appearance in our everyday lives.  It was bound to happen.  With engagements come wedding plans and with wedding plans come — well, I guess we’re going to find out.  And when Evin would say something remotely wedding plan-nerly — I’d take her hand, pull her to close to me, whisper in her ear that I loved her and how happy I was that we were getting married, and kiss her. And talk of wedding plans would be postponed for yet another day. But I knew I was only buying time.

At some point, someone would ask innocently, have you set a date yet?

Two weeks and five days ago my girlfriend Evin and I got engaged.

We both knew this would happen even though getting engaged had become of late, the elephant-in-the-relationship — infrequently discussed, occasionally joked about.  By the time I was fairly sure she was just insane enough to accept, I went out and did the prudent thing. I had Evin’s best friend take her to a jewelry store under the guise of looking for earrings, trick her into heading to the back of the store to look at engagement rings, find out exactly what she wanted, then report back to me.

The following week I went to 47^th St (NYC’s diamond district) to buy a ring. When I found what I wanted, it sat buried in a bag  in the back of our closet while I waited for the exact right moment.

Late in the afternoon the following Saturday, I sat Evin down at our kitchen table — the one we built from scraps left on the curb of our neighbor (the actress) Keri Russell’s house.

Me: “So, if we went engagement ring shopping, what would you like?”

Her: “Should we even be having this discussion?  Shouldn’t you just go out and buy one?”

Me: “Do you know what you want?

Her:  “Yes, am I supposed to just tell you?”

Me: “Should we go to Zales?” (a joke) “What are you thinking, ¼ carat,  1/2 a carat?  Color V, clarity QW9?” (all jokes)

This went on for 10 or 25 minutes until I pulled the ring out and said, “should it look like this?”

I expected tears or shock or a combination of the two.  Instead, she casually waved me off, stood up from “The Keri Russell Table” and walked out of the room saying dismissively, “that’s from a gumball machine!”  I tried to convince her but she wasn’t having any of it.  “Let me see that,” she said looking at it closely, “it’s not even a good gumball machine fake diamond ring.”  So I went to the bedroom and brought out the laminated certificate.  Only then did it register on her face that I was serious and the ring was real.  “This is where you say ‘yes,’” I instructed.  And she did.

A flurry of text messages and phone calls to family and friends followed before a walk two blocks away to celebrate at our favorite neighborhood restaurant.  Looking over our menus we made a pact — “let’s enjoy being engaged for one week and NOT talk wedding plans.”  We hardly made it to dessert.

Over the next week we sat at our computers looking at web sites that supposedly helped couples plan their wedding. “How To Buy That Dress,”  “Picking The Right Bouquet,” “Who Will Be Your Maid of Honor.”  Hey!  What about me? And so I thought:  maybe I should blog about the wedding experience from the male POV.  And that’s that.

So until Evin and I get married early next summer, I will be blogging on a weekly basis how this undertaking is going for me. A Groom With A View will be an honest account of the most illogical of processes — getting married.