The Proposal

My amazing partner-in-crime somehow managed to surprise the hell out of me and sweep me off my feet with the most amazing proposal ever.



We have mad history with our Aussie mullet-wearing friends of Air Supply. Will and I spent the first few years we knew each other in high school driving through D.C. to their dead-serious duets and giving each other mix tapes that had alternating songs of theirs, The Descendents + Body Count. And five years ago, the night we realized we just had to be together, began by hearing one of their 80's love ballads in a whole new light.




Will and I have known each other for over ten years, and I adore and am more fascinated by him more and more each day we are together.






We used to steal kisses after Key Club, skip school to watch 'Star Wars', saw each other through heart-breaks and losses over Baskin Robbin's ice cream cones, and shared countless high school and college road trips and memories.



As kids, even when dating other people, we remained the closest of friends and saw each other through our ups and downs. We went to Will's senior prom together as best friends, got each other's back through countless hard times, and have always shared the same ridiculous, twisted sense of humor.







For Will to pull off a surprise the way he did took a lot of forethought, careful planning, and some pretty tricky maneuvering. All of this effort made what I thought was just another fun little dinner out on September 15th, a HUGE surprise that completely swept me off my feet. Will somehow lured me to Staten Island and into the St. George's Theater without me having any idea of the reason or occasion.


An even more mind-blowing fact is that I had no idea what was going on until the lights dimmed, curtains rose and the teal and magenta lights filled the stage. Who knew the salt-and-pepper, short-long-having, bedazzled-cross-shirt-wearing Russel Hitchcock and his neon-clad guitarist and partner Graham Russel were still touring?

I was shocked, thrilled and in total disbelief. They instantly had me laughing and singing within the first two bars of the opening song "Sweet Dreams", a personal fav of ours. Half hilarious and half dead-serious, as is everything that we do, we sang and laughed as we watched Air Supply serenade Staten Island. Will was so cute and quite pleased with himself upon seeing my ecstatic response to the unbelievable surprise, and I was so distracted and overwhelmed by the fact that we were seeing them, that it never would have dawned on me that there was more in store for us.



A little over half-way through the show, the lights dimmed and Air Supply introduced their favorite love song. Thus began the best part of the night. The opening bars to "Two Less Lonely People" began, and Will and I looked at each other with the hugest smiles on our faces. We sang along, kissed, danced, and prepared for our fav part: the break-down, the bridge, the harmony we always try to nail. The momentum builds and here it comes... "tonight I fell in love with you, and all the things I never knew seemed to come to me somehow, baby love is here and now there's...." and they hold the pause, a HUGE spotlight comes up right on us, I look down and Will has slipped down on one knee, is holding my hand, and putting a ring on my finger! He then so confidently and sweetly say "Meg, I love you so much, will you do me the honor of one day becoming my wife? Will you marry me?" And right then, the entire place starts singing "Two Less Lonely People in the world, and it's gonna be fine..." I say "REALLY?! REALLY?" In utter disbelief, and as I see how for real he is, I say "YES!" Will jumps to his feet as the world melts away and we hug, kiss, laugh, cry and are just generally freaking out.



The rest of the song, show and night is a blur of excitement I have never felt before. Will managed to eloquently slip in, right after I said yes, that the ring he put on my finger was the 1930's platinum ring that William Battle Cole, Will's paternal grandfather and namesake, gave to his bride in 1934, and that this date, September 15th, was their wedding anniversary.


Will took proposal to a whole other level. Will just doesn't do something unless he can do it better than any man ever has before. As my future man-of-honor and best friend Justin Scribner said, "Will is like...super-human." Truth, J-Dawg. Truth.







Our story is unlike many others in that our history, our relationship and our road to becoming engaged is longer than most. This union has been eleven years in the making. Each year, each step closer enriching our connection and building a stronger and more devoted bond than I ever dreamed possible.