I Was Proposed To In A Graveyard

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It was a crisp and sunny Autumn day. Perfect weather for the Peter Pan collar shirt and wool skirt I had purchased to wear specifically for this Saturday morning. As I applied makeup for the first time in many moons, I looked in the mirror and said to myself, “I’m getting engaged today.”

I’m sure I’m not the first person who knew the big Q was coming beforehand. My boyfriend at the time had left a Facebook chat with one of my best friends wide open on his computer. I wasn’t even snooping around when I saw the messages he had exchanged with her, sharing the date and time of his intended proposal. He told her instructions would be coming her way soon for a dramatic set up she would be tasked to help with. I was understandably thrilled.

At the time, I was 22 years old, a senior in college, and dying to tie the knot in a wedding carefully designed on private Pinterest boards. Everything was going to be perfect now that I had seen this Facebook message. I would leave school with my future already free of “what-ifs.” The ball was rolling with what seemed to be my now impending dream engagement.

I played dumb all morning the day of. By now, all five of my apartment roommates were in on the plan and were struggling to remain unsuspicious. Eventually, my friend Emily suggested we take a trip for a girls group photo with her recently purchased DSLR camera. Everyone agreed a little too enthusiastically.

As we piled into the car, my mind was running with possible places they could be taking me. Would we arrive at a fancy restaurant in the city? Perhaps a forest clearing adorned with red roses was awaiting me. I was only able to imagine a few scenarios before we stopped. We had traveled only a few miles down the road and had parked next to a graveyard I had never been to in my life.

As the estrogen-filled car emptied out, Emily ushered us all towards a bench sitting a few yards into the gravestones. Nothing was screaming “LOVE!” at this point, and I was tempted to break my feigned ignorance and demand to know what was going on. Instead, I followed my friends as we made a path through the headstones.

We sat down on the bench for a few seconds while Emily casually snapped some pictures on her camera. Then, I saw someone emerging from the tree line. The first notes of Bruno Mar’s Marry You carried over from a small Bluetooth speaker, followed by a beep and a robotic voice declaring “Low Battery.” The speaker died before any actual lyrics could begin.

By now, all my girlfriends had cleared the bench and I was left sitting alone. My boyfriend made his way over and hastily ditched the dead speaker and started into his spiel. He talked about our relationship, our future, all the good stuff. He then mentioned that he had picked this location since it held such good memories from when we would come here to relax and do schoolwork during our time at college together. As I mentioned earlier, I had never been to this graveyard before. I didn’t call him out at the time, but I had no idea what he was talking about. To this day, I still don’t know if he got me confused with someone else that he had taken on a graveyard studying date, or if he had some false memory of us spending time here, making flashcards among the dead. He shared a few other sentiments before pulling out a ring.

I was elated to be proposed to, but there was a sense of disappointment during the whole ordeal. Sitting on a graveyard bench wasn’t really what I had in mind when I had pictured this moment. The whole thing felt uncoordinated, dry, and like a shitty scene out of a made for TV Halloween movie. I always imagined I would be so overwhelmed with emotion when someone proposed to me that I would be bawling the whole time. I didn’t shed a single tear. Looking back now we didn’t even hug or kiss, he just put the ring on my finger and we smiled at each other before I moved over to my group of friends, still standing by, to celebrate with them.

As if the event couldn’t get any stranger, a few minutes after the big reveal a police car drove up the gravel path parallel to us. The window rolled down and a cop called out letting us know we weren’t allowed to be here. There was an issue with people damaging gravestones, and unless we were visiting someone buried, we weren’t welcome. A somber ending to the trip.

If you’re familiar with some of my other pieces, you know that I am no longer married to my graveyard proposer after a very short stint together. Things didn’t work out, and perhaps the proposal was an indicator of what was to come. It’s a funny story now, and the friends who were present have since expressed that they too thought it was a little weird but didn’t want to say anything. Even my parents have recently joined in on mocking how ridiculous the set up was.

Let my story be a lesson to all of you. To anyone thinking of proposing in this fashion, I recommend you don’t. To anyone who receives a graveyard proposal, maybe take a little extra time to process before you answer, I think you’ll thank me later. .

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Kell

future soccer mom of America (AKA I drive a Volvo.) Miracle is my favorite movie and it should be yours too.

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