The Engagement

Our engagement story starts after a wonderful Thanksgiving with the Bouwma clan in Gainesville. Two years had passed since we first started dating on Thanksgiving in 2005. On the long ride that night back to Tallahassee, we decided that we both were ready to take the next step. We wanted to get married and the time had come for us to get engaged. We were both pretty excited, and after getting back to Clemson the next week, I began to look for a ring for Denise. I also worked on figuring out a place and time where I could pop the question and still somehow surprise her with both. Denise started looking for a ring for me and wanted to surprise me with it as well. Over the next month, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we both found rings and planned when were were going to give them to each other. Perhaps the biggest surprise in all of this was that, given how inept we both are at keeping secrets, neither of us let the cat out of the bag beforehand.

On December 22, Denise drove up to Atlanta with Mike from her lab to meet up with me at the Georgia Aquarium, after which we would begin our drive to Maryland for Christmas. For several days before heading up to Atlanta, she had discussed with her friends the possibility of my proposing at the aquarium. No matter how perfect an idea this may have seemed, I had said that the idea of talking to Denise's parents on the phone about asking her to marry me would freak me out way too much. I was going to wait until after our arrival in Maryland and do it face-to-face. So, Denise would just have to wait. . . or would she. After meeting up at the aquarium and checking out the exhibits, with Denise talking to every single fish, crabby, and jellyfish we came across, we finally arrived at the grand finale - the big ocean tank with huge groupers and whale sharks. The picture below gives you an idea how amazing this tank really is, the largest of its kind in the world. I had been looking for a place to drop to one knee all over the aquarium, but no place had seemed just right yet. Now the only place left was the big tank. Thankfully, it was perfect.


We sat for nearly an hour in the large viewing room, mesmerized by the giant fish swimming just beyond the giant viewing window. Finally, I announced that I could no longer feel my extremities and needed to get up and move around a bit. So, Denise stood up and was picking up her coat and purse as I tapped her on her arm. I had only risen to one, numb, wobbly knee. In my trembling hand I held out a beautiful silver ring with a sparkling blue stone. "Denise, will you marry me?" My lovely, surprised girlfriend looked at me for a second in shock, then smiled, began jumping around, said "yes!," and gave me a long kiss. She put the ring on, looked at it for a second, and pulled a box out of her purse. Now it was my turn to be surprised as she gave me my ring too.


It turns out that I did have the guts (just barely) to call Denise's parents a few weeks before and that part of the reason Denise was late to Atlanta was that she had stopped at FedEx to pick up a small, orange box that morning. After one more kiss in the shimmering blue light with the inquisitive groupers, giant sharks, and schools of silvery fish as our witnesses, we left the aquarium giddy with excitement to start sharing our good news with all of you.