The Engagement Story: Part 6- Do People Still Ask For The Bride's Parents Permission To Marry Their Daughter!? Is That Even A Real Thing!?

 

Hopefully I can get a refund if she tells me to BEAT IT!

 

This small series will be a break from my normal travel writing and blogging.  It will attempt to document to the best of my memory and limited writing skills the run-up to Colleen and I's recent engagement.  I apologize in advance if I get a little sappy at times.  Brent.

Top three worst feelings in the world: number one would be constipation lasting longer than twenty-four hours; number two would be having your eyes glued open while reruns  of "The Littlest Hobo" play on TV; and the other would have to be standing at the boarding gate in an airport with all of the flights sold out for the next two days to your destination and you just realized your only hope of getting to BC to surprise-propose your girlfriend apparently just evaporated before your eyes.

Yes, I was in full on "what-the-fuck-do-I-do-now" mode.  An hour earlier the flight to Vancouver had 60 open seats and just like that it was sold out.  Myself and a few other standby passengers were completely befuddled and I was left to figure out what to do now.  There was another flight to Vancouver in a couple of hours but it, like everything else, was oversold.  Frantically I started calling my Mom and sister and tried to arrange anything.  I even started looking at last minute full-fare flights, but because of the high air traffic volume they were selling for over $1500...one way!  I will spare you all the ensuing drama that occurred, but in the end I made it on to the oversold flight.  Because a few of the people who were scheduled to fly on this flight had moved up to the earlier flight that I originally thought I was getting on, a handful of seats had opened up and I happened to be one of the people who was blessed with this sudden turn of fortunes.   I am not a religious man, but I can honestly say that was about as close to divine intervention or whatever the hell it's called as I have ever experienced.

Due to the fact that we were waiting for a connecting flight to come in to Toronto, my flight out ended up being delayed and now I was going to be in jeopardy of missing my connecting flight from Vancouver to Kamloops.  Nothing is easy I tell ya!  Eventually we arrived in Vancouver and I had about fifteen minutes to spare before my connecting flight to Kamloops.  Naturally it was at the other end of the airport and I literally ran from the second I got off the plane until I reached the next boarding gate.  When I didn't see any agents at the desk I panicked and assumed the worst, but again the Engagement Gods (they are a real thing) were smiling down on me and the flight was in fact delayed.  With a few minutes to spare I booked a hotel for that night in Kamloops and tried, but ultimately failed, to get a hold of a car rental agency (not the easiest thing to do at almost midnight in a town like Kamloops).  Oh well, I would just catch a cab and arrange the car rental the next day.

The flight to Kamloops went off without a hitch. We arrived at close to 1am and I was (again!) greeted with some amazing luck when at the airport there still happened to be a car rental agency employee there who had to wait around for our flight as someone had pre-booked a car rental.  I quickly procured an eco-friendly clown car aka a Toyota Yaris and I was officially off and running in Kamloops!

That evening I crashed at some moderately priced hotel (Riverland Inn and Suites) right along the river in Kamloops and headed to bed knowing that the next day was going to hopefully be one of the most nerve-wracking  best days of my life!



I made it to Kamloops! View from my room at the Riverland Inn and Suites.  Sure beats the farm fields of Ontario.



To say I was beyond nervous when I woke up on Monday morning would be a massive understatement.  Then again, I guess being nervous about if my plan was going to work is better than being worried about if she would say yes!  Once I woke up, my first order of business was to call Colleen's Mom, Brenda, and ask for her permission to marry her daughter. Due to my lack of foresight I did not have her work number and had to message Colleen and ask for her Mom's work number.  I gave her some bullshit excuse about a friend of mine was working in the school system in Kamloops and was wondering what school my girlfriend's Mom worked at (shitty excuse, I know).  Somehow Colleen didn't clue in to anything.  Nothing like leaving it to the last minute.  I was unsure if people still ask for permission or if this was just something people do in movies, but nonetheless Brenda was super excited and for the sake of secret-keeping it was probably a good idea that I didn't let her in on my plan beforehand.  I am not sure what I would have done had she said no, but thankfully she is in need of some grandchildren so she gave me her blessing. 

After some communication with my accomplice Stephanie to make sure our plan was still a go, I called Colleen and talked to her as if I was just waking up in Ontario when in fact I was at a hotel a mere ten minutes from where she was.  Once I was convinced that she had not caught on to my plan I told her I would talk to her later that night when she was at the hotel with Stephanie as I had things to do.  Not a complete lie; I definitely had things to do!  I spent the morning gathering romantic supplies and basic life necessities like clothes and toiletries.  As mentioned in my last blog I had to depart Ontario in haste and therefore had no extra clothes and was majorly lacking in toiletries.  I stopped by Home Sense to pick up some flower vases, then the liquor store for some bubbly and then headed over to the Real Canadian Superstore for some one-stop shopping.  I quickly picked up a large amount of candles, flowers, clothes, etc, and was constantly looking over my shoulder fearing that I would accidentally run in to the woman I was supposed to be surprising later that evening!



Flower shopping.  Chicks dig flowers.  Or so I've been told.



Note: I decided to do my one-stop shopping at Real Canadian Superstore instead of Wal-Mart as I have never heard Colleen mention it when talking about her shopping conquests.  I would later learn that Colleen did in fact go to the Superstore within an hour of when I was there!  Yes, my good luck continued...

Once I gathered all of the necessary supplies I rewarded my stealth shopping with a Grandpa Burger from A&W.  Just in case Colleen happened to be craving a member of the burger family (Momma Burger perhaps?) I made sure to eat in a corner booth that provided ultimate spying capabilities on all of the comings and goings of the fast food joint.  With my hunger satisfied and my rental car stocked with enough candles to light an entire Amish settlement I headed out to Quaaout Lodge in the town of Chase which  is about an hour outside of Kamloops.

The resort itself appeared to be almost empty, as it was after all a Monday afternoon in late Fall.  At the check-in desk I explained to the woman that I was going to be (hopefully!) surprising my girlfriend later that evening when she thought she showing up for one-night spa retreat with Stephanie.  Since I had booked the room, I arranged for them to have a "fake check-in" for Stephanie and Colleen when they arrived.  Stephanie would bring Colleen up to the room and BAM!!! I would surprise her. 

The scene of the future proposal.
 

And if she says no, at least I got to use these dual shower heads to give my butt the best cleaning ever!

With things in order at the front desk, I gave part of my stockpile of flowers to one of the waitresses in the restaurant who put them on a table for me.  I then hauled the rest of my goodies up to the Jacuzzi Suite I had booked and set about trying to recreate a scene from my favorite porno romantic movie.  Once the flowers were arranged, the candles laid out, my beard shaved, and my freshly purchased wardrobe applied, there was only one thing to do: wait.

View from my balcony at Quaaout Lodge.  Now we just a need a girlfriend to walk in the door...

~Brentski~

Next time: The final  chapter.   The proposal with full video proof!

Shit's getting real.  Candles and flowers.
 

Wish me luck!

 

The Engagement Story: Part 5- Momma The Dancing Machine!

I apologize for the delay in getting Part 5 on paper.  I came down with a nasty case of the flu last week and was thus resigned to laying on my couch in agony for three days and watching all day marathons of "Cops" on Spike TV.

This small series will be a break from my normal travel writing and blogging.  It will attempt to document to the best of my memory and limited writing skills the run-up to Colleen and I's recent engagement.  I apologize in advance if I get a little sappy at times.  Brent.

With the ring now procured and the proposal plan hatched out, there was only one thing to do.  Wait.  Well, that and attend two of my best friends' weddings in the two weeks before I would fly out to BC and attempt to surprise Colleen.  Talk about maximizing your time away from Inuvik: in the span of ten days I was a groomsman in one wedding, a best man in another and I was planning on getting engaged.  Throw in a quick one-night getaway with the lady to Niagara Falls and you've got the healthiest dose of lovey-dovey stuff this side of a Nicholas Sparks movie.  Unrelated: The Notebook gets me every time.

About a week and a half before the planned proposal, I received a frantic text from Colleen's friend and my partner in crime Stephanie.  Rather hesitantly and in a panicked state she informed me that Colleen had borrowed her phone while they were out driving and had seen that the two of us had been texting each other.  While  Colleen did not see the contents of the messages, she became instantly suspicious and thought something was up.  Steph did her best to make up excuses as to why we were messaging each other and I told her that she should just tell my girlfriend that the two of us were having a long distance sexting relationship behind Colleen's back.  On second thought, my sexting skills aren't that deft, so as to further sell Colleen on the idea of their "Girls' Getaway Weekend", I quickly drafted up a fake gift card (see image below) for Stephanie to show Colleen in the hopes that it would deter some of her suspicions.  As I later learned, this gift card trick actually worked quite well and helped convince Colleen that in fact she was just going for a night away with Stephanie and there was no elaborate plan in place between the two of us.



The fake gift certificate I drafted up in hopes of squashing some of Colleen's suspicions.



As mentioned, in the days leading up to the proposal Colleen was in Ontario for the wedding festivities of my friend Jon and his now-wifey Gianina.  Their wedding was on a Saturday night and Colleen was scheduled to fly back to BC on Sunday.  I had a return flight booked from Toronto to Inuvik on the Wednesday, so the plan was for me to fly out on the Monday to Kamloops and return to Toronto on the Tuesday.  That was the plan.  

People who have followed my stories in the past know that I often times travel on standby as my mother is a retired Air Canada employee and my sister works for West Jet.  Standby is great when there are lots of open seats, but can be an absolute fuckin' nightmare when flight loads are heavy.  The day of the wedding, we learned that the only flight Colleen could really make it out on the next day was a flight leaving Toronto at 6am.  Since she travelling on my sister's West Jet standby passes our options were pretty limited and we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would be getting no sleep that night.




Jon and I. Pure business.

With that in mind, we moseyed on down to Casa Loma for the wedding and proceeded to have ourselves a great time.  My parents were also invited to the festivities and everyone was having a fantastic evening.  Some might say a little too fantastic, as sometime during the night my Mom slipped on the dance floor and shattered her wrist!  At the time, we did not know that she had severely injured her wrist as she was receiving medical advice from a bunch of people who had already been enjoying an open bar for a few hours (Lines like, "I'm a volunteer firefighter so I say you are ok" and "just put ice on it, it heals everything" were being tossed around).  Eventually, wiser heads prevailed and my Mom and Dad were shipped off to the nearby hospital in a cab.  The rest of us continued to celebrate and dance all night, figuring my Mom and Dad would be back in no time and that my Mom's wrist would be nothing more than a minor sprain.





The conga line, or as I like to call it "My Mom's wrist's worst nightmare".





 

Well, that didn't happen!  When 2am rolled around, my parents were still at the hospital and Colleen and I returned to the hotel that we were supposed to be sharing with them by ourselves.  Seeing as how we had to get up to shuttle Colleen to the airport in two hours, we grabbed a quick power nap and the next thing we knew it was morning.  An open bar followed by two hours sleep is possibly one of the worst feelings of life.  My Mom and Dad had still not returned from the hospital and upon calling them we learned that my Mom's wrist was about as broken as broken can be and would require major surgery.  So much for that sprain.  As we frantically got ready to shuttle Colleen off to the airport, we realized that my parents had Colleen's wallet with them and we would need to detour to the hospital.  Somehow, with the bare minimum amount of time to spare we got Colleen to the airport and on her way back to Kamloops, BC.

Gettin' our wedding on...someone else's wedding.

Colleen may have been back on her way to BC, but for myself the adventure was just beginning.  After dropping her off at the airport I headed back to the hotel in downtown Toronto to await word from my parents on what was happening with my Mom.  They were still waiting to see a specialist and we were all kind of left in limbo.  As noon rolled around I had to check out of the hotel and ended up just grabbing a bite to eat and watching football while I waited to hear something.  Eventually around 1:30pm or so, after 16 plus hours,  they released my Mom from the hospital, although she was going to have to come back that evening.  With that being said I jetted over to the hospital and picked up my now extremely tired and in-pain Mother and Father and we headed back to Bradford.  Not exactly how we imagined the weekend going, but hey shit happens!  It'll be a good story for the grandkids one day.

Once back at my parents' house, we logged online to the Air Canada employee website to check the status of the flights the following day to Kamloops.  My worst fears were suddenly realized when we saw that literally every single flight to Western Canada the following day was sold out or oversold (a practice all too common with airlines nowadays).  There was no possible way to get to Kamloops or anywhere even close to Kamloops, so we quickly shifted into panic mode.  After scouring all of the flights, we found one to Vancouver that had 60 open seats and I would be able to connect on to Kamloops from there.  The thing was it was leaving in two-and-a-half hours!  We deduced that this was my best (and really only) option. I had no clean clothes, so I quickly washed and semi-dried one outfit as fast as I could and headed off to the airport. I loaded a small carry-on with my laptop, the engagement ring, and couple of toiletries that I had that I could carryon to a plane.  Clean clothes and the rest of my toiletries would have to purchased tomorrow: in Kamloops hopefully!

I arrived at the airport and was texting Colleen who had no idea I was on my way to BC.  I was as giddy and nervous as could be.  Super excited to get on that plane, and then; my worst fear: The flight filled up at the last minute and I didn't get on.  The crazy weekend, just got a little crazier.  My stress levels were reaching epic proportions...

~Brentski~

Next time: Bringing the cheesy plan to life.

 

The Engagement Story: Part 4- Why Can't You Just Let Me Surprise You Woman!

This small series will be a break from my normal travel writing and blogging.  It will attempt to document to the best of my memory and limited writing skills the run-up to Colleen and I's recent engagement.  I apologize in advance if I get a little sappy at times.  Brent.

The "engagement seed plan" as I like to call was planted a couple of months before Colleen and I left for vacation in October.  As previously mentioned, I knew that I had a fairly limited window of time to get the deed done, so I started brainstorming up ideas as to how I was going to surprise someone who kind of knew that I was up to something.  Thankfully for my brain I spend a lot of time just sitting on the toilet with my pants down and not actually using the porcelain fixture for its intended purpose.  I like to think that it was during one of these bathroom timeouts that I derived my master plan.

It's a known fact that all great thinking occurs on the toilet.

Colleen was scheduled to fly into Ontario a few days before Jon and Gianina's wedding on October 26th and she would be flying back to Kamloops, B.C. for a few days after the wedding before returning to our home in Inuvik.  My flight back to Inuvik was already booked from Toronto on October 30th, so on the 27th we would be going our separate ways for a few days.  Or so she thought!  My plan was to fly out to Kamloops secretly after Jon's wedding a day after Colleen  for one night and catch her by surprise and pop the question. Simple. Easy. Done. If only!

It's one thing to draft a plan up in your head, but it is an entirely different animal trying to set the wheels in motion.  After devising this grand scheme in my head, I started looking for places online that were fairly close to where Colleen was staying in Kamloops as I was only going to be in B.C. for a day or so and didn't want to spend all my time there driving to and fro.  After a few alcohol-fueled internet search sessions late at night while Colleen was slumbering in the bedroom, I stumbled upon Quaaout Lodge in Chase, B.C. which is located within an hour of Colleen's Mom's house.  It is a beautiful resort right on the shores of Shuswap Lake and after a few emails sent back and forth, the wheels were finally in motion.

Looking out over the balcony from Quaaout Lodge onto Shuswap Lake.

The next step in the plan was figuring out how the hell I was going to get Colleen out to the resort.  For this I enlisted the help of her childhood friend, Stephanie.  Her and Colleen have been BFF's (I believe that's what the kids call it) for ten years or so.  I devised this plan where Stephanie would tell Colleen that she won a "girls weekend spa getaway" package at Quaaout Lodge through her employer and that she wanted to take Colleen.  Assuming everything ran smoothly, Steph would bring Colleen out to the resort that day where I would be waiting to pop the question and give a terribly awkward speech on one knee.  It's safe to say that the only thing that was guaranteed in this plan was my pathetic attempt at an engagement speech.

Colleen, Stephanie, and I in Whitehorse this past summer. Unrelated: DO NOT go hiking in jeans!

In the weeks leading up to the proposal, there were a couple of close calls where Colleen almost ruined the whole plan.  As mentioned, she is borderline impossible to surprise and I knew I was going to have be stealthy.  After researching the resort, I made sure to delete my internet history so that she would not see what I was up to.  Unfortunately, I did not delete my "cookies" and literally the week I started to get the ball rolling on the plan, Colleen decides for the first time in her life to use Hotels.com.  DAMN YOU KOKANEE BEER FOR FUCKING WITH MY INTERNET NINJA SKILLS.  I'll let you guess what was in the boxes labeled "Date" and "Destination".  FUCK MY LIFE.  At first I was blissfully unaware of any of this until a few days later when Colleen confronted me at our friend's house on a Friday evening and said something along the lines of, "I think I might be ruining a big surprise but I was booking a hotel for my Mom and I and I stumbled across...".  I am pretty sure my heart almost burst through my chest at this moment.  Thankfully, I was not too lubricated at this point in the evening and was able to quickly think on my feet.  I told Colleen that I had been talking to her friend Stephanie and that she had won a trip this resort and I was in fact just doing some research on the resort to see what it was like.

I admit, it was not the greatest excuse, and I am not sure my lady believed me, but it was all I had!  After feeding Colleen this bullshit excuse, I quickly ran into the bathroom and called Stephanie to explain how I had almost ruined the plan before we even got started.  Steph agreed to tell Colleen in a few days about the trip she had "won" and I told Colleen to act surprised when she did.  Colleen may have thought something was up, but we would definitely be more careful going forward.  Or so I told myself.

Leading up to our trip down south in October I made sure not to  mention her "girls getaway" too often and anytime Colleen playfully anxiously asked about how I was going to propose to her I just told her that I would find a way.  Ladies, the best way to be surprised is not to ask your boyfriend a million times when he is going to pop the question.  Seriously.

When it was finally time to for me to head to Ontario, Colleen and I said our goodbyes, but not before she loaded up my phone with pictures of different rings she liked.  Yes, this is what I am dealing with.

Back i Ontario, I enlisted the help of my sister Natalie to help me go ring shopping.  Having talked to a few people who have been through this process, I will admit that at first I was extremely nervous.  My friend Jon had told me how he spent weeks and months researching the perfect the ring for his bride and provided me with various links and websites that he thought I should submerse myself in.  My research on the other hand consisted of looking at a couple of jeweler's websites the morning before we went shopping and quickly reading up on the "4 C's"or "5 C's" or whatever the hell it is. 

Natalie, my Pops, and I.  Two not-so expert ring shoppers and one expert beer drinker.

Now that I had my quick study session done, Natalie and I headed to the mall and were lucky enough to walk in the door right by the jewelry store we were looking for.  After a quick explanation to the lady working the counter about what we were looking for and price range and all that jazz she quickly whipped out some rocks and I could feel my wallet getting lighter with each word out of her mouth.  I also came armed with the plethora of pictures my girlfriend had provided for me and I could not tell if the lady working found this cute, disturbing, thorough, or some combination of all three.  After spending maybe 20 minutes or half an hour with her, we were quite impressed with a couple of the rings and in fact the first ring she showed my sister and I was the one that we fancied the most.  But alas, Nat and I felt that we should check out a couple of other diamond retailers, so we did just that.  After seeing a selection of other rings and nothing really catching our eye, we both deduced that we liked the first ring and so with that we headed back to the store.  I think the lady working was surprised to see us again so quickly.  Needless to say, Nat and I gazed at the ring a bit more, decided that we liked it and the next thing I knew I had just completed the single largest credit card transaction of my 28 year existence.  It goes without saying that the lady working had probably made one of the easier commissions she was going to have that month. 

In the matter of a little over an hour, the entire ring purchasing process was over.  Quick and painless.  Oh, and did I mention that while Natalie and I were out shopping my girlfriend kept texting me with all of the requirements that her ring must have.  Lots of little diamonds. White gold. Round or cushion cut diamond.  Definitely not square.  Lots of little diamonds surrounding a bigger diamond.  But not too big.  Blingy, but not gawdy.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME WOMAN!?!?! I was just praying that Colleen would like love it, and if she didn't well I might have to sell one of my organs on the black market to cover the cost of a second ring.

 

The ring. Enough said (Obvious spoiler alert, she said yes!).

 

~Brentski~

Next time: Panic at the airport and a last second change of plans.