Jackie Colbourne and Andrew Ritchie’s Proposal Story

The story of our proposal begins on my 25th birthday. Andrew and I both took the day off work to celebrate. Now, we had designed an engagement ring together but Andrew was feeding me stories of problems with the ring mold for a week before my birthday and his acting was so good I believed him and didn’t expect a thing that day.

Andrew picked me up from my house to start my day of birthday fun. When I got in the car, there were a dozen roses on the front seat. After tending to my roses, Andrew and I went out for lunch, then heading into Toronto to Casa Loma. This location has meaning for us as we’ve envisioned our wedding at this venue. While there we even pretended and planned where we’d be standing if our wedding ceremony took place in the conservatory. After that we had dinner at The Baton Rouge, and then he took me on “A Tour of the 25 Years of Jackie.” This tour included significant places in my life such as where I grew up, my elementary schools and high school and the places that have been significant in our relationship such as where we met, and where he first asked me out 10 years ago (yes that’s right, we started dating at 14 years old!). The only places we didn’t visit were the universities I attended during the six long-distance years of our relationship. After this very creative and thoughtful tour we headed back to his place where I opened presents and then headed off to bed.

Around 1:30am I woke up because he wasn’t in bed with me, I looked outside and saw him sitting in the backyard with candles everywhere surrounding the pool. I ran and grabbed my shoes so I could join him, and walked along a candlelit pathway to where he was sitting in the gazebo with dozens of roses and candles surrounding him. As I walked towards him he started playing and singing our song on his guitar. Andrew serenaded me with love songs that have been meaningful to us throughout our relationship. I cried the whole time but kept telling myself this isn’t necessarily a proposal; just listen to his singing. Enjoy this! Finally Andrew said he wanted to sign a song that he’d written for me and handed me a page of lyrics so I could read along. These are his words:

When will you call,
I’ve been waiting so long..
Long these days have been,
Love to see you again…

You’re coming home,
Only for a while…
Unable to cope,
Mostly miss your smile

After everything we’ve done
Ready for whatever may come,
Ready to fail to disagree,
You are everything to me.

Maybe, our love is meant to be
Everything else means nothing to me,
Just stay here a while (you)
Always make me smile

Can you see how far we’ve come,
Keeping together all along,
It’s no surprise we made it through
Everything is thanks to you.

When he finished singing I was a sobbing mess. He told me there was a hidden message in the song and asked if I noticed it. Through all my tears I hadn’t, and asked him to point it out to me. He directed me to the first letter of each line and there read, “Will You Marry Me Jackie?” When I looked at him he was on one knee with the ring in his hands and he asked me, “Will You marry me? Will you marry me, Jackie?” I sobbed and cried and tired to yell the yes I had been dying to say! Although it came out in a whisper.

When friends hear this story they ask, “Andrew did all that?!” None of them knew there was all this romance in him! I had an inkling, but he surpassed my expectations, hopes and dreams for what that moment would bring. It was a perfect birthday and a perfect proposal. I couldn’t have asked for more. Our families and friends are thrilled. We’re now planning our magical celebration of our commitment to each other for the summer of 2009.