The Proposal

I really wanted a different kind of wedding ring the second time I got married.  For six-and-a-half years I'd been examining every ring I saw, wondering how it would look as a wedding ring. One day I found a costume jewelry ruby ring that I loved. It had a large ruby in the center with tiny rubies and diamonds on either side. I wondered how it would look with a wedding band of rubies and diamonds next to it?

By the time Moe and I began talking about rings, I had decided I wanted my wedding ring to be a ruby instead of a traditional diamond. Moe was happy to give me whatever I chose, so we took my imitation ruby ring with us when we went to the jewelers.

“Do you think you could make an engagement band and wedding ring like this?” I asked my brother-in-law, who worked part time at the jewelry store.

“I think we could do it,” he told me after examining my ring. “It wouldn't be exactly like this, but it would be close.”

“How expensive are rubies?” I asked, hoping I wasn't going to make Moe spend too much money.

“They're cheaper than diamonds,” my brother-in-law assured me, “a little.”

Having a ring designed and created from scratch took longer than buying a ready made ring, but one thing for sure; no one else would have a wedding ring like mine. Perhaps I was kind of vain, but I liked being different from other people. I enjoyed thinking of myself as a bit of a character, maybe even a little eccentric, and Moe didn't seem to mind.

Until he had the ring, Moe wouldn't let me tell people we were engaged. “You can tell them we're talking about getting married,” he told me, “but we aren't engaged if I haven't proposed, and I can't propose without a ring.”

Actually, that seemed kind of silly to me, but if Moe wanted to be old fashioned and romantic, OK.

The ring was finished the last of October. We went by and picked it up at the jewelers, and I couldn't have been happier. It was gorgeous! I wanted to start wearing it right then, but Moe took it and put it in his pocket. “Let me do this right,” he told me..

We had a family Halloween party the next night with all of my brothers and sisters and their children. I helped my kids get dressed up, and even put on an old prom dress I'd worn years earlier for my costume. I told the kids I was a princess.

Moe came after work, bringing me a beautiful bouquet of red roses with one white carnation in the middle.

“Red roses are beautiful,” he told me as I happily gathered the bouquet into my arms and took a deep breath of their amazing fragrance, “but we've always got to have at least one white flower to remind us of the Temple.”

I gave him a big kiss, and then he admitted, “I really wanted to get you all white roses, but they didn't have any.”

“These are perfect,” I assured him. “And having one white flower in the middle makes it stand out, and seem even more important.”

At dusk we gathered all the kids and took them trick-or-treating.  Moe and I walked behind, holding hands and enjoying the cool evening air. You could always count on it finally cooling down for Halloween.

After we got back to the house we ate dinner, then the kids scattered to play games and eat their candy. My brothers and sisters congregated in the big family room to visit, but Moe whispered in my ear, “Would it be OK if we left the kids with everyone else for a little while?”

“Sure,” I told him. I'd been suspecting that he might be going to 'officially' propose to me this evening.

My brothers and sisters were happy to shoo us out the door, they knew what was going on, so Moe and I said goodby to the kids and walked out to his truck.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked him happily.

“You'll see,” he answered.

It didn't take me long to guess. We headed straight into the heart of Mesa, right to the Temple. How appropriate. This was the place were we met, the place were we would soon be married, and the place which would start our happily ever after.

Moe parked in the back parking lot, opened my door, and led me by the hand to the front steps of the Temple. We walked up about three steps, then he stopped, knelt down, and pulled the ring box out of his pocket.

“Gale, will you marry me?” he proposed.

“Yes,” I answered with a big smile, but my heart was singing, Of course! What do you think? Absolutley! You'd better believe it! And half a dozen other similar phrases.

And so, Moe and I were officially engaged. He told me later that he had really wanted to take me up to the cabin, to a special hill I had showed him where I'd always dreamed of building my mansion and living happily ever after. But logistically, he couldn't figure out how to get me there and back in the amount of time we had available. Personally, I thought it was much more appropriate, and romantic, for him to propose to me right there on the steps to the Temple, where our story had begun, and where we would soon be sealed together forever.