The Engagement!

John and Emma were driving down to Port Elizabeth from Cape Town to attend a family friend’s birthday party. They had organised to meet John’s parents on the Friday night, at their holiday house in Oyster Bay (just outside of Port Elizabeth). Emma thought this was going to be a weekend to spend some quality time with the in-laws, as they do not see them a lot. Little did she know; the whole evening had been planned without her knowledge. They arrived at Oyster Bay and met up with John’s parents. John had organised with his mom (Sonja) to get the engagement ring from the UK, and she had brought it down with her. She was supposed to fly down to Cape Town and join them for the road trip, but her flight got cancelled and she was forced to fly straight to Port Elizabeth the following day. This gave John a small heart attack, as he kind of needed the ring! When Emma was distracted, Sonja sneakily handed him the ring, and John shoved it into his hoodie pocket for safekeeping. As everyone was relaxing in the lounge having a drink, the wedding march came on over the speakers. Emma being the only one unaware of the song being played, everyone else knew what was about to happen and slightly panicked. The song was swiftly changed to something else. John’s parents said they needed to pop off to the shops to get supplies for the braai we had “planned” for dinner. Once they had left, John invited Emma to go have a stroll on the beach. As you know, Oyster Bay has a very special meaning for the two of them. It was the place where John had asked Emma to be his girlfriend, 6 and a half years previously. As they were walking down to the beach, Emma noticed that John was acting more weird than usual. He was cracking lots of silly jokes, and running around crazily, making sure that his hand was tightly squeezed onto the ring box in his pocket to prevent it falling out. Clearly this was his way of dealing with his nerves. They were walking along the beach and the sun was setting, so they decided to go and stand on a sand dune to get a better view. John had wanted to stand on the same sand dune where he had asked Emma out on, but unfortunately the years had overgrown the dune with bushes. He found another sand dune which had a perfect view of the sea and sunset beyond. As they were standing there with arms around each other admiring the magnificent view, John pulled Emma away and turned her to face him. Emma noticed the slight tremble in his voice as he started to speak, and it was at this point, she knew exactly what was happening. He started telling Emma what a blessing it was to have her in his life, and that she was that one person who he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. As John got down on one knee in the sand, he pulled the ring box out of his pocket, and asked Emma the question she had been waiting for. “Will you marry me?”. Emma had tears in her eyes. She dropped to her knees to join John in the sand, and of course she said yes! John was terrified of dropping the ring in the sand, but he managed to get the ring onto her finger. After a few teary kisses and explanations, they sat huddled together in the sand, watching the remainder of the sunset. A perfect moment to start their life together.