Jesse Melissa
OUR STORY
We had our first date on February 1st, 2010 - meeting for burgers and beers at Black Iron Burger in Manhattan's Lower East Side. Though at first it seemed like the date might end after dinner, Jesse suggested a quick round of skee ball across the street at Ace Bar. We ended up staying for several beers and lots of conversation...and making plans for a second date to see the Tim Burton exhibit at MoMA (Jesse later purchased the above postcard for Melissa).
Over the past four years we've bonded over mutual loves of good beer (we now brew together), good food (we've twice placed in the Brooklyn Chili Takedown and host an annual Second Thanksgiving extravaganza), and baseball (even if we root for different teams). We've also welcomed a yellow lab named Colby (after Colby Rasmus...or the cheese) and a calico cat named Fuggle (after the beer hop) into our family.
The Engagement
Jesse's Version
While Melissa was home in St. Louis visiting her family with Colby I decided it was time to surprise her with a proposal when she got home. I took the day she was set to fly back off from work. I had purchased her a set of VERY fake diamond earrings, after realizing I was going to have no idea what I was doing purchasing an engagement ring, so that if/when she said “yes” she would have something to show her friends and family. I spent my morning trying to throw her off the scent, texting her that I was going to be stuck in work meetings all day and wasn’t going to be available to IM, but also asking for updates when she would be taking off, landed, in a cab, got home.
When she finally got a cab I sent one final text, reminding her to pick up our farm share groceries, as I “might be stuck late at work,” and proceeded to hide in the bedroom with our cat, Fuggle. Since Fuggle usually wants to greet Colby when she comes back, I knew Melissa would have to look for Fuggle if she wasn’t out to greet them upon their arrival home.
When Melissa and Colby arrived home I could hear her through the door curious as to why their greeter wasn’t waiting by the door. Fuggle, as I expected she would, started to yowl. Melissa annoyed, and worried that an angry Fuggle had turned our room into a litter box, opened the door to let her out and saw me down on one knee, with the red “Hernandez is my Homeboy” T-shirt that she had given me on, started tearing up and asking what was going on.
After days of going over in my head what I wanted to say to her, about how much I love her, how happy she makes me, and how lucky I am to have her in my life, all I could think about was that Colby was going to run in and knock me on my back. So I asked her if she would marry me, and I try to tell her the rest of that every day.
Melissa's Version
People have asked when I knew Jesse was “the one.” It’s a difficult question. Like too many people, I think I realized just how special our relationship was when I came close to losing it after a brief move back to St. Louis. I knew I must really love Jesse when the idea of spending New Year’s Eve in pajamas with him was more appealing than any party could ever be. I knew he loved me a lot when Jesse—not exactly a dog person—not only tolerated a wild Colby puppy, but came to love and embrace her as his own (she now likes him better than me!). And I knew he must REALLY love me when, after last year’s whirlwind Vonder Haar Christmas, Jesse immediately took vacation so he could come back.
From early on, I knew that the element of surprise was really important to Jesse when it came to proposing. After catching the bouquet at our friends’ wedding last summer, I asked Jesse if I should show him some ring styles I liked –he got VERY huffy, saying he knew what I liked and I had to let him surprise me (good thing I told him not to get a ring unless he was sure!). Likewise, when I told him it was important that he asked my parents, he fretted that they’d never be able to keep it quiet (probably a valid concern, since I spent the week leading up to the proposal visiting my family).
Well, Jesse got his wish for a surprise. Though I found it a little odd that he was so insistent that I text him not only when Colby and I landed in New York, but when we got a cab AND when we got home. Lucky for him, a day of traveling and almost leaving my ipad on the plane had me so frazzled that by time I got home, all I was thinking about was kicking off my shoes.
As Jesse mentioned, I was fully expecting Fuggle to be greeting us and was terrified that she’d been locked in our bedroom all day. So imagine my surprise when I opened the door to Jesse on one knee! Still, since he didn’t have a ring box out and didn’t say anything at first, I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. I think I asked “is this for real?” about three times before he asked me to marry him…by then I was in tears and demanded he get up and hug me before I finally said yes. (For the record, it wasn’t until after then that he showed me the “diamond” earrings).
After calling my parents to “ask” their permission (they just laughed and cheered) and Jesse’s parents (he hadn’t told ANYONE about his plan), we headed up to our roofdeck to celebrate with some homebrew. I don’t think I’ve stopped smiling—or celebrating—since.
