Dee and Matt Real Engagement Story
It was October 2003 and we were both very tired and stressed out and we decided to get away for a few days to Cornwall. Matt’s work had been crazy and we took the only five days we could find and hired a tiny cottage. While we were down there we had lots of time just walking and exploring and on the Thursday we managed to get a table at lunch time at Rick Stein’s restaurant in Padstow (somewhere we’d been dying to go forever!). It was pouring with rain and Padstow was miserable so we went in very early, had a fabulous meal and emerged two hours later into the sunshine. We decided to head out of the town and find the costal path and walk some more. It was very blustery when we found a carpark and I changed into dirty jeans, wooly hat and my dad’s old coat for a walk on the beach. The wind was blowing seaspray all over us so we ran across the bay to a little sheltered spot in some rocks and precariously balanced on those rocks Matt got down on his knee and proposed! I was so surprised!!!
We had talked about marriage and children due to some health problems I had had and I truly thought he’d never be able to surprise me. We were also due to go to New York in the following December so I suppose I had assumed he’d ask me there! We had also talked about asking fathers for permission during that week in Cornwall and I had got on my high horse and said how awful to ask my dad as I was not his to give away!!! Well obviously once Matt had proposed I immediately said "You asked my dad didn’t you?" he had and we laughed a lot about it! He had been going to ask me in the restaurant but the day before some friends from Exeter had driven over to meet us for lunch and we were discussing his sister and her man planning their engagement and myself and our friend Fiona started talking about all the right and wrong ways to propose. Now I am a loud person but also quite private and I would have hated someone to ask me in front of a crowd or in a restaurant full of people and this is when that came out!!!
Anyway we got some champers and took it back to the wee cottage with some pasties for tea and called everyone we knew and got totally sozzled!
