weddingsonline editor Pam is getting married next year and is going to be sharing her trials and tribulations along the way! In the first of her posts, she talks proposals...
Pam's Story
Hello fellow brides and grooms! I'm getting married on May 31st 2014 (6 months, 9 days and counting!) so am happily in planning/bridezilla mode and will be sharing my wedding tales/woes with you over the next few months, the good, the bad and the ugly (i.e. my dancing skills). So let me tell you a little bit about myself and my fiancé Paul...
I have been with Paul just over four years, we randomly met outside Sin É pub on the quays in Dublin and timing of course was a curse. I was in the midst of planning a round the world trip and was only five months away from setting foot on a plane. Fast forward five months and there I was with a backpack roaring my eyes out. I headed off for the guts of a year, leaving Paul behind but having fallen for each other, we decided to try and make it work, and we did (long-distance people, I hear ya!). Skype, a colossal phone bill and a seven week visit from Paul (he’s a teacher so has the cushy holidays) got us through before I returned home and we have been together ever since.
The Proposal
Deep down, I think a lot of us us ladies think about how our proposal will go down once we meet the man we know/hope we're going to marry. But nothing can prepare you for that moment when you hear those four words, whether you're on the sofa or have been whisked off to Paris, it is magical!
A little bit of background info on our proposal – I am a big penguin lover and adored Sullvanian Family when I was younger. The previous year for my birthday, Paul crafted a replica of our breakfast set-up in our living area (one of our favourite times) using Sullvanian family penguins and thus started the theme for his proposal (image below so you get the picture!).
On the Saturday he proposed (a week before my birthday), I heard a lot of rustling about in our living room at the ungodly hour of 6.30 am. The next thing I know Paul is in our bedroom, wrapped up in his winter woollies handing me scroll with a list of instructions on it, and one of the ‘Guess How Much I Love You’ cards (inside it said 'you’re about to find out' – major alarm bells at this stage ladies!) , saying he would see me soon and off he went. Half asleep/dazed, I unwound the scroll and was firstly instructed to put on some warm clothes and go in to the living room... but to leave the lights off!
I threw on clothes (even a Vera Wang sample sale in BT couldn't have got me out of there quicker!) and ran in to the living room to be greeted with fairy lights in the shape of a heart on the floor and two penguins perched beside his laptop, saying 'press play'. I nearly broke the buttons trying to see what was next but alas up popped our story through a montage of photos to a soundtrack of our favourite songs on a projector screen he had set up.
When that had finished up (and I had dried my tears), I pulled back the curtains as instructed (Number 3) and perched in front of me was a box similar to the penguin set-up from last year, but this time the two penguins were standing outside Sin É (which is just across the bridge from where we are living in Temple Bar) and a tag attached to it saying... ‘Come find me again forever’! 
Of course there were more tears, followed by me fleeing our apartment (Usain Bolt in the 100 metre sprint had nothing on me!) and running across the bridge to Sin É (he had cellotaped giant diamonds to the traffic lights to guide me there – bless) to where he was standing outside the place we first met. Paul then got down on one knee and I have been on planet wedding ever since! Oh, and why so early you might ask? I’m not one for public displays so the quieter out, the better he thought.
Time Flies...
It has been almost a year since we got engaged (ladies, believe me the time disappears! Agh still so much to do) but I will be sharing my wedding journey with you all over the course of the next six months or so, everything from my mammoth hunt for 'the one' (the dress that is) to catering dilemmas and everything in between. Talk to you all soon!
Main image via Etsy
