Mike & Michele's Wedding Page

Because of the nature of our proposal we decided to share the story of it with those who are interested in such things. It goes without saying that Michele's version of events is going to be different from my version of events so we've set up our page in such a way that you'll get the story twice. First you'll hear my version and next you'll get to hear hers.

Michael: I guess I should start out with the story of the ring. It all started out when I made the classic mistake of telling Michele to go look around and tell me what kind of ring she wanted. Well she looked around and naturally a jewelry store salesperson got a hold of her and the next thing I know she's talking about carrots, platinum, gold, two months salary, and all of the other related crap that a jewelry store sales person will fill any potential brides mind with. "Woah there" I said I think this is a bit out of hand. I told her on her next trip up to Raleigh we'll go and look at rings. I immediately started to try and get Michele to think of an engagement ring as something that could just be a gold band without any precious stones, or maybe get her a cheepie pearl ring or something related. Alas, the damage was done. Her thoughts were diamonds and weren't going to stray from that idea.

Michele's next trip up was with my mother and so consequently we went looking at rings together. Naturally there was a big price discrepancy between what Michele thought was a good ring and what I thought was a good ring, in her defense I have to say that my idea of a decently priced ring is something that you would find in the discount section of the Wallmart jewelry bench, hers naturally is a bit higher than that. While a jewelry store of some renown, she found something that we both thought was acceptable but this was the moment where my ruse started.

Even though I was secretly excited that we had found a ring that would fit the bill, I didn't want Michele to know that this was the one. I immediately started bemoaning the price tag and started imploring her to please reconsider the cubic zirconia alternatives. Naturally the moment after she left to go back to Orlando, I took off for the jewelry store and purchased the ring in question. I still wanted to be 100% sure about everything and I also needed to put together a halfway decent proposal, so I decided to hide the ring in a drawer and then give it to her at a later date.

One of the things that I thought would be special is if some of Michele's family was available to witness the event, and knowing the guys wouldn't be all that interested, but the women in her family would be, I arranged for her mother and grandmother to come up for a visit. I filled Betty (Michele's Mom) in on my plans, but I kept most of the details to myself. My plan was to fly the family into Asheville so that they could see Biltmore Estate, I could give Michele the ring there, as Biltmore Estate was the scene of one of our first dates, and then drive home to Raleigh.

Michele is a smart girl and I realized she'd think something was up with my instance that her mother and grandmother come up to visit. That of course meant that I had another ruse I had to put together. I used the excuse of changes to my house. As some of you know, my house has been my passion for the last couple of years and I live for visits so I can show it off. I'm especially proud of my bedroom modeled after some of the rooms in Biltmore Estate, and my Ronald Regan Memorial Bathroom.. But that's a story for a different set of web pages. Either way from the moment I started insisting that her family visit with her, I always talked about weather or not her grandmother would like the house. I kept asking Michele what her mother and grandmother want to do because after all it was their weekend. Naturally after about a month of this, I got the feeling that Michele was completely and totally under the impression that the whole purpose of the trip was to schmooze her family.

Now the hard part... How to make it special? Well, first it had to be at a special location. Taking a cue from my stepbrothers proposal, I wanted a scenic point at the estate to make it more memorable. Knowing that they offered a rooftop tour, I called and asked if I could propose on the tour. I was told that it wasn't a good idea to stop the tour because they are on a time schedule, but the head of customer services offered to take us up there under the guise of a rooftop tour and give me the chance to propose where we wouldn't be bothered by others and where we could have some time. Once that was set up, I had to think of a decent way to ask. I sat down and wrote down what I thought would be just the right words. Click here to see an actual copy of what I wrote down and read to Michele: