Since Tiffany had already told the story of the proposal day, here’s my story about the days leading to it.

I’ve always knew that I wanted to marry this girl but the timing had to be perfect. It had to be right. I’m a very nit picky guy so everything had to fall into place at the right moment.. even down to the every second. To me, I had to plan the perfect proposal for Tiffany and my planning began about one and a half years before our 10th year anniversary.

Planning the proposal took a long time because I honestly had no idea what to do.  It wasn’t until one day when I sat around thinking about our journey together thus far that I realized I had to ask her to marry me with the same way of how we got together. Since I had folded her a thousand cranes and she had folded me the same years later, I wanted us to fold the last two cranes of another set of a thousand together so that we could make the wish of growing old together.

I knew I wanted to propose around our 10th year anniversary so it left me with a year to fold 998 cranes. I knew I wanted to propose during dusk hour so I needed lights to light up the cranes. I found the perfect paper to fold, the perfect lights to shine, and then began folding 3-4 cranes every day. I had to hide my growing collection of cranes away in boxes, away from Tiffany. While I continued folding cranes and attaching each one to the lights, I kept in close contact with all of our friends who would be helping me.

The next thing I had to figure out was the location. I wanted to propose where it would be just us. Me and her. I needed a place that was dark enough for the cranes to light up and secluded enough to play music. I went out scouting for a location and came upon the perfect place. Three weeks before the proposal, I had my friends meet up to do a test run of the lights and it was more than anything I had imagined. It exceeded my expectations.

As the months were getting easier to count on my fingers, I knew the inevitable was coming. What every man dreaded to do: talking to her parents and hoping for the best. Now, I’m not much of a talker, nor am I a very confident man. I was nervous and worried about what her parents would say. Would they agree? Would they be so open to accept me for who I am into their family? My parents, on the other hand, have been waiting for this day (or rather, the wedding day) since the dawn of time. They couldn’t wait anymore for Tiffany and I to tie the knot. When the day came and I had to talk to her parents, to my surprise, they said yes in the best way possible.

Tiffany is a detective. It is so hard to surprise this girl because she is so good at piecing things together. I had to come up with a plan to trick her into thinking I would propose on January 30th, rather than the week before.  I had my friend’s girlfriend, D, ask for a photoshoot months beforehand. To make it more realistic, we had set it for a week before January 24th, only to cancel it and reschedule it again for January 24th.  The Friday before, I had her brother, R, plant the final seed to completely throw her off. I wanted him to play dumb and accidentally blurt out the fact that I have not talk to her parents so that she would not be suspicious at all about the next day’s photoshoot. Luckily, it worked.

The day arrived and our friends proved that they are the best people ever. From friends who helped me set up the place to friends who flew in from all over the country just for our special occasion.. It was one of the best days of my life.