A fairytale proposal a year in the making
Eric proposed to me the eve of my birthday Monday Oct 3rd 2016. It was absolutely epic and took me by complete surprise. He had spent the past year designing and building a fairy tale proposal book with secret puzzles inside every chapter. If you want to see how Eric made it, he wrote that up on Instructables: A fairytale storybook marriage proposal
He knew that I loved making story books for my family when I was a little girl so he decided to create a fairytale story based on our relationship
The book is about the two main characters - Super Santa and Ms. Gingerbread and and their quest to find The Perfect Fit. What is the Perfect Fit? Neither of them know.... yet
Each chapter in the book is accompanied by a puzzle I had to solve in order to get to the next chapter.
Chapter 1 - Once Upon a Time
The first chapter is the story of the day we met at a Christmas Festival called Santacon in San Francisco. He was dressed as Super Santa and I was Ms. Gingerbread. In order to move to the next chapter I had to find Super Santa and Ms. Gingerbread from an array of Christmas characters and line them up with a mistletoe, because our first kiss was under a mistletoe.
He incorporated all the details from the night we met, from the place we met to the feather that fell off my dress (that amazingly he actually kept!)
Its only when each of the 3 elements perfectly fit together that the Christmas tree on the bottom moves up, allowing me to go to the next chapter.
Chapter 2 - A Life of Adventure and Change
The second chapter is the story of our adventures on the road with our RV, nicknamed The Slim Roller. As I moved the RV, little wooden icons popped up on the road. These were either fun things we did together or obstacles we had to overcome. Like how he got really sick on our first date but I went out with him again, Burning Man, Zion National Park, sleeping in a Walmart parking lot stranded in Elko, Nevada and escaping a grizzly bear in Alaska
Each icon represents a specific event. I loved the detail he went into
Chapter 3 - The Trusty Sidekick
In the 3rd chapter, Eric brought Pickles, our adorable labradoodle puppy into the story.
He fits perfectly with Super Santa and Ms. Gingerbread, teaching them valuable life lessons
He even shaped a bunch of the pieces like a dog bone
Chapter 4 - The Perfect Fit
And the final chapter is when Super Santa finally figures out that Ms. Gingerbread is his "Perfect Fit". And that he would walk 500 miles and he would walk 500 more just to be the man who walked 1,000 miles to fall down at her door. And now he needed to know if Ms. Gingerbread felt the same way about him. He gave me one last puzzle to solve...
The last puzzle is ancient Persian Artwork with a hidden opening. When I finally figured out how to open it, the ring was inside and he was down on one knee, asking me to marry him
Of course, as I should expect by now, he also designed and made the ring himself:
Oh, and the cutest thing - the back cover of the book is the actual road we were traveling on the day he proposed.
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He even surrounded the scene with little engagement rings
We are now engaged and happily planning our life of adventure and change together