Last weekend I proposed to my girlfriend of two years, Emjay.
This may come as no surprise to many of you, as we have been talking about marriage for a long while. Emjay’s mother, for example, was researching weddings halls for this summer before I’d even discussed it with her. In this light a proposal was more of a formality than a big step.
To others, this may be more of a surprise. After all, we’ve only been together for two years, she’s Korean and I’m British, and I’m only twenty two years old, almost a decade younger than some of the average marriage ages I’ve been hearing of lately. For this reason the news has even taken the form of shock. Surely it’s too early… You should wait!
I’m not here to address these questions now. I will only say that I’m confident that I love Emjay, that she loves me and, much more importantly, that we are both committed to each other and our lives with similar values and expectations. We both intend to work very hard at making what I expect to be a very rough ride as smooth as possible, starting with getting her father’s consent to our marriage. I don’t really consider us engaged until then.
Instead, I want to give you a short account of how it happened. I want to share with you the excitement of the moment and the nervousness leading up to it. The consequences will, naturally, come later!
Last Sunday, the twentieth of February, was the second anniversary of the day Emjay and I started dating. Because we’d already been talking about marriage I was worried that she might expect a proposal that evening, so I settled on surprising her the evening beforehand. However, this was not to be easy, as she was away on a business trip (on a pepper farm – team building) until eight in the evening.
Assuming this to be accurate I sat waiting in a cafe that a friend had introduced to me on the outskirts of Ilsan, the satellite city that Emjay and I often travel to in order to meet. I had invited some friends to drink coffee before her arrival, partly to support the cafe (which had only been open two months), but mostly in the hope of calming my nerves. We sat in a large alcove separated from the rest of the space so that without going to look you wouldn’t imagine it to exist. This quietly chatting company enhanced the atmosphere of the already splendidly (and no doubt expensively) decorated coffee house with a bubbling excitement.
I had arranged for Emjay’s mother to pick her up from wherever she happened to be left by her company and drive her to my location. This eventually happened at around seven, an hour earlier than planned. It wasn’t a matter of planning that I was prepared for this.
On false pretenses of an important errand Emjay’s mother drove her to the church we will soon be attending together, just a ten minute walk from where I was sat in my shiny three piece suit. Upon arrival there she was handed a bag with the outfit I had encouraged her into buying to wear for our anniversary, but which was actually intended for our meeting a short drive later. No doubt sensing something was strange she complied with her mother’s firm request, and returned to the car a little later to find one of her favourite Alicia Keys songs playing.
At this point, despite being a two minute drive from the cafe, Emjay’s mother began to drive without aim around town for a quarter of an hour. The first song finished, and Emjay instantly recognised the voice of another friend’s soft Korean voice through the radio, having been recorded at my request earlier in the week. Two carefully selected songs followed, during which Emjay was given an envelope which contained a short letter addressed to her, confirming her suspicions that I was behind her journey without giving away the reason for it.
As if she wasn’t confused and nervous enough the radio show continued into a short shout out, where my friend gave some time to congratulate us on our second anniversary and read out another message I had for her. Another two songs followed, all of which had been picked especially with her in mind.
She later told me she was at the point of crying, but held back because her mother was with her.
In the middle of the last song, exactly as planned, she turned up to the back door of the cafe. Walking through the door she caught a glimpse of our friends, who had been soaking up all my excess nervous energy and started at seeing her. Though almost stopping to say hello Emjay sailed past and found the corner where I was waiting for her.
Sitting her down with a cup of strong black coffee, we passed a little time talking about her unexpected journey so far and, eventually, silhouetted by the strong yet gentle light diffused through a wall of traditional Korean paper, and encouraged on by a mellow and rising classical score, I dropped to one knee and offered up the diamond necklace I had chosen only days before.
After a clumsily worded proposal she replied, in awkward nervousness “What should I say?”.
And then after a long moment and a few more words she said the right thing, and we were engaged.

