Our Story From Andrew's Perspective

Andrew wrote this to the people who helped get my ring to Paris. I thought you may want to read his perspective, he tells it much more romantically.

Since leaving Paris with the ring, I met my girlfriend (now fiance) Kacy in London the following day. We spent the afternoon together, enjoying each other's company after two and a half months apart. I kept the ring hidden in the safe in my room. The following day I collected up all of the souvenirs I had accumulated for her over the trip, each now wrapped in newspaper (from Paris) and placed them in to a small tin box (also purchased in Paris). The tin box waited patiently in my bag that day as we explored London together for the first time. Secretly, I was scoping out a perfect place at which I could later come back to with Kacy and propose to her. The day couldn't have gone by quicker, and before I knew it is was almost sunset and had gotten pretty cold. I was beginning to wonder if I'd even get my chance today. We ended up at an area which I believe is called "the Queen's Walk" near the new London City Hall. We walked to the water's edge and enjoyed the view out to Tower Bridge and across to the London skyline. I felt as though I had found the place where I could propose. I wandered away from Kacy, over to a friend of mine and told him that I thought this was it. I told him I was going to stay behind with Kacy to give her the souvenirs I'd been toting all day, and that he and the gang should go on ahead. He, of course didn't know what I really meant when I said "give her the souvenirs", so I had to bluntly tell him that I wanted to propose here. He and the rest went on to dinner just down the street. I told Kacy our new plan, and she was very excited. I suggested we move down in to the small amphitheater space called "the Scoop" adjacent to the City Hall building. There I began to give Kacy her hand-wrapped souvenirs, one-by-one. The first item I gave her was a box of apple tea from Istanbul, Turkey. She is a big fan of tea and this had been one of my favorites. The next item I handed her was a small container of condensed, lotion-like perfume from Eze, France. This was made by a company called Fragonard which is nestled in the hills just beneath the city of Eze. The third gift was a bundle of stationary with the initial "K" at the top in green- her favorite color. This and the following gifts were all from Venice, Italy. I bought them at the smallest store where a woman single-handedly made hundreds of journals, sketchbooks, stationary, and so on. Each was leather backed and hand-bound. Her products were truly beautiful. Kacy's next gift was a stick of wax. She was confused, as I'm sure you are. Expecting this, I quickly handed her the last souvenir: a metal and brass seal, used to seal an envelope by stamping it in to hot wax. Kacy looked it over carefully, but overlooked the one detail I was hoping would catch her attention. On the seal were the letters "KA", intertwined. I asked her if she noticed them and told her to take a closer look. I said to her, "the letters are 'KA', for Kacy Anderson, because (I removed the last gift from the box, the ring, and opened it before her)... I want you to marry me." Her face was priceless. She truly had not expected it. Not in London of all places, after 2 months of traveling. She sprung to her feet and hugged me. She kept saying how she couldn't believe it and asked me repeatedly if I was serious. Somewhere in there I believe she said yes. After the initial shock wore off I looked at her, still holding the ring, and asked her if she wanted the ring. Clearly it was not the most important thing to her, but she didn't know the effort it took to get it there. She took the ring from the box and exchanged it for her parents' promise ring which she had been wearing on her ring finger for the past several years. The new one was a perfect fit. She was, and is, so excited to be my fiance. We took a few pictures and then went down the street to meet our anxiously awaiting friends for dinner. I'll never forget it.