When She Said Yes

August 3, 2002


Three years ago today, I vowed the following to my wife:

"I accept you Paige,
as a person, and as my wife,
with your strengths and your weaknesses.
I promise to be loyal to you in health
or illness,
to share what I have and who I am,
to love enough to risk being hurt,
to trust when I misunderstand,
to weep with you in sorrow,
to celebrate with you in joy,
and to live with you in reverence."

And she vowed the same to me.

I am always humbled by her kindness and strong sense of conviction.

I proposed to her on Stone Mountain in Georgia on a hazy but beautiful day. We stopped by Shane Co. on the way to Stone Mountain to "look at" rings. Not that I had already proposed, but we were certainly headed that way, so discussion was in the air. While we were looking, I excused myself to go to the bathroom, but really I went to the back counter to pay for the ring that I had already selected. (Sneaky as I wanna be.)

After "looking", we drove to Stone Mountain with her being none the wiser about the ring. If she suspected anything at all, she had dismissed it entirely because of our little trip to Shane Co. And so we rode the sky tram to the top of the mountain with me constantly fidgeting in my right pocket, afraid I'd lose the ring at any given moment. An impossible fear with it being so deep within my pocket, but you understand.

Upon exiting the tram at the top, the tram attendant said that Stone Mountain is 825 feet tall and all I could think was that if I dropped the ring at any point, it could possibly roll 825 feet away from me. Well, after admiring the scenery, I turned to Paige and proceeded to tell her how much I love her and all kinds of nice things that I wish I could remember saying now. I then pulled the ring carefully from my pocket and asked her to be my wife. Through her happy tears, she said yes and we hugged. I realized later that I forgot to go down on bended knee. Happily, this was not a deal breaker.

We started dating in August of 1996, so this day had been a long time coming. She is certainly patient and I thank her for that. My life is certainly enriched as a result and I'm more in love with her now than I was even then.

One funny memory from the day of the proposal:

After she said yes, I asked a request of a passerby. I told him that I had just asked her to marry me and would he take our picture.
In complete seriousness, he asked "what did she say?"
I wondered why would I want to document my rejection. "Here, I'm sad and she's mean. Take our picture!"

Paige, thanks for saying "yes". And then thanks for saying "I do".

The wedding album is here.

And the honeymoon album is here.