This isn’t news to me, but I’m a very lucky guy. Almost a year ago I met a gorgeous and talented woman who made me laugh, made me feel great about myself, encouraged me, made me happy, made me better - in short, someone I was sure pretty early on I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. We shopped for wedding rings this summer and even though we initially agreed to wait a few months before getting engaged, once I had the rings in my hands I realized I couldn’t do that. On September 1st I bought her to Washington Square Park because it’s one of her favorite spots in the city. I got a local street musician to come out and bring his piano so he could play “Clair de Lune” for us - we’d heard him play it on our second date and I wanted to recreate that moment. Not that anyone needs my advice, but if you’re planning a marriage proposal, don’t involve movers: their truck broke down and the piano got to the park an hour late, so I had to spend a lot of time stalling and saying ‘everything’s fine, but let’s hang around here some more, but everything’s fine, no, I’m not checking my phone a lot.’ Anyway it all fell into place eventually. The piano arrived, the musician set up and played, I brought her over and proposed. She returned the favor. We spent a little time getting out pictures taken by one of her photographer friends, and at the last minute I said we should stop in front of the Arch for a couple more photos.
This is where it turns into one of those Only in New York things. As we got into position I turned around and who was behind me? Alec Baldwin.
“Have a nice evening,” I said, thinking for some reason that ‘I’m a big fan’ would annoy him.
“We saw you back there,” he said. “Congratulations.”
Huh?
We just got the photos back from the photographer this weekend. Alec Baldwin is in a ton of them along with his wife, their baby and their dog. They live in the area and they were walking by the Garibaldi Statue right as I popped the question. They sat down to watch the whole thing and just happened to bump into us again 10 minutes later. This must be one of history’s most epic celebrity photobombings. In fact one of the best parts of the photos is looking at other people’s faces while we were having our moment. I heard a few people clapping and saying stuff while it was going on, but there’s a whole drama playing out. There’s one woman who is clearly having her day made just watching us. There’s another lady frantically texting a friend while I try to get the words out of my mouth. It’s nuts.
To get my intended out the door I’d promised her dinner at a favorite restaurant, and we actually did go there after we were finished at the park. Waiting for us was my family and about 10 of our best friends. I hadn’t told anybody why I was throwing a surprise party, but almost everybody figured it out. It was a beautiful celebration.
Long before I proposed we were busy planning a life together, and that’s kicked into a higher gear. We’re planning for a wedding next year and hoping to buy a home, both of which are a lot of work. But we’re very excited and overwhelmingly happy about this new phase of our journey.
