It’s official, Louie and I are ENGAGED! 🙂 We are extremely joyful and ready for this next adventure in our relationship. We appreciate all the nice greetings, comments and support from our friends and families. Many people have asked me how he proposed. After repeating it about ten times now, I got pretty good at telling it:
How He Asked
We usually see each other every Sunday afternoon. Last Sunday was no different, except that it was Valentine’s Day, and so I expected our dinner date to be extra special.
At 3:00PM, he fetched me from Mandarin Sky in Banawe, where my cousin celebrated his birthday. Then, we drove to his house where he said we would stay while waiting for his reservation at the restaurant at 8:00PM.
Since I had a bad cough the previous week and preferred to rest at home, topics and stories to share have piled up. We talked for two hours but it felt like 20 minutes.
Video (Part 1)
Suddenly, he had me watch a video he made. It was a short video showing a day in his life—what he does from the time he wakes up in the morning, yada yada yada. Before it played, he excused himself out of the room because “he had to get something from their main house.”
I watched the video alone and thought it clearly showed his personality and his sense of humor. It was enjoyable and worth critiquing. Knowing him, I was positive he would ask me for a technical review since he had been spending some time learning how to create video content that will engage viewers in various subjects. 😛
The storyline was well established early on. The tone of narration, music and sounds, ambient transition effects, and acting of the characters (Louie as himself and the animated Dodsy, my doll) were great. I was completely unaware that it was a video cuing for something else.
The video ended with a black screen and “EATING TIME” as the only caption. I guessed it was time for us to head out to the restaurant for dinner. From behind the door, Louie emerged, covered my eyes, and walked me to their living room that was transformed from simple to va-va-voom romantic!
Dinner Date: Not an Average Valentine’s Day Celebration
The adornments looked visually impressive. With candle lights and rose petals scattered around, the room conjured a feeling of romance. The table setting and comfortable seating were ideal as well for a quiet tête-à-tête. If I were to rate the ambiance like I normally do for my restaurant reviews, it would be 5/5 stars. 😀
Louie served us food from Ombu Modern Filipino Restaurant in Tomas Morato. Ombu is a specialist for awesome Filipino food with twist. Tastes were not revolutionary but rich and excellent nonetheless. We had Tinapa Croquettes (creamed smoked fish coated in breadcrumbs), All Meat Pizza (Hungarian sausage, longganisa hamonado, bacon, salted egg whites, mozzarella, kesong puti), and Smoked Bangus Spaghettini (olive oil-based pasta flavored with garlic and smoked milkfish).
For our drink, Novellino Strawberry Passion was a pleasant surprise. It’s a casual 4.5%-alcohol wine blended with natural strawberry extract that enhances the wine’s fruity character and gives it a refreshing finish. Since the dishes went a little too heavy on the salt for our taste, the sweet wine turned out as a good complement. 😉
I was delighted to see the effort he exerted for all these, but it was just the icing on the cake…
Video (Part 2)
After dinner, I gave him his gift. It was a long sleeve polo and a pack of coffee (he recently discovered his love for coffee). To my surprise, he said he has something for me, too. I thought the whole dinner experience was the gift, but that wasn’t all.
Another video began to play.
The Sweetest Marriage Proposal on Valentine’s Day
The video’s concept followed “Maalaala Mo Kaya” (MMK) with Louie as both the letter-sender and Ms. Charo Santos. 😉 It was an episode centered on his views and feelings towards me, our relationship, and basically all the amazing highlights from the years we spent together. His kind words sounded genuine. I felt in awe of the thoughtfulness he put to making the video so unique and special.
This time, the video ended with an instruction, and it was for me to go through the door to the kitchen and follow the lead. I got lost at first but found the right way eventually. Apparently, the rose petals sprinkled on the floor were the lead to the room on the upper floor.
And there he was—in the middle of the room, with one hand holding a bouquet of roses and another, in his pocket. I thanked him for the flowers and told him how I tried to open so many doors to find him. For a moment, it was quite comical—until with a smile, he pulled out the ring, got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him! (Christina Perri’s A Thousand Years was playing as background music.)
My heart dropped and my face lit up with pure happiness. I did not even look at the beautiful diamond ring. I immediately said yes, certain as the sun rising in the east. ♫ Oh yes. I jumped into his arms and hugged him tightly. He hugged me back. 🙂
Louie is extremely romantic, and our engagement story shows that perfectly. It was one of the most precious nights of my life. 🙂 For starters, I had absolutely NO IDEA that engagement was anywhere close to happening for us that night.
Thanks to his brothers for helping with the setup and taking our pictures. 🙂
How We Met
Louie and I met in 2007 in our first year, third term in DLSU. We were taking up BS-ICTM (Information and Communication Technology Management) and were classmates in some of our classes. I thought he was cute but that’s all it ever was, nothing I imagined the man I would fall in love would be like. It wasn’t a year later when we started to talk.
Mostly we discussed about academics, homework, and only a little about personal life through online chat. In person, we exchanged two-second glances and quick hello’s.
Fate gave us a little push. Sparks flew when we realized how much our lives aligned. We knew it was something we could not ignore and so we explored further. We were friends for two years before we became a couple.
We’re now at our seventh year, and I feel so grateful to have him. He’s just the kindest and most loving person. He inspires me to take chances and be adventurous. He’s always right there and does everything he can to make sure I feel safe. With him, I feel right at home. ♥
Now I have a wonderful fiancé and one big wedding to plan! I can’t wait to marry the man of my dreams and create more meaningful scenes in our “MMK episode” to share with you guys. 😛 So exciting!
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