The Rightful Order of Things (Engagement Stories)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Engagement Stories
Date:	13/10/06 (170 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A marriage is for life not just for Dogmas

Disadvantages: Crocodile wrestling relatives

There was a time when asking for a girl’s hand in marriage was the done thing. Maybe it’s still that way now; I’m really not sure but certainly for us keen-to-do-wells then it seemed to the right thing to do…or at least attempt anyways. Over the years, we’ve all been taken in by that Bing Crosby gentlemanly type stuff of proposing under the light of a silvery moon whilst swigging martini as ice-skaters gently slide past your horse and carriage. Alright then, maybe not all of us but I’ve watched enough old movies to know that there was a gentler time and maybe the way it was in that time was the way things should be. Of course, that doesn’t reckon with any adverse reaction you might get from potential-in-laws when seeing through your perfect proposal.

I’d been going out with partner for about four years when we decided to get hitched. Apparently, I proposed in a swimming pool. The sad truth is that I really don’t recall. That’s very bad isn’t it? I do remember the rest of it, though. It was 1987 and the punk boom was spent; New Romantics had come and gone and Aston Villa were about to have a very average season. In the grand scheme of things, it’s reassuring to know how we notch our marks on the bedposts of time by using either music or football. Well, at least most blokes do along with particularly good beer sessions or who won the FA Cup that year. So there we were; I’d proposed (don’t recall), she’d accepted and we’d decided to do the traditional thing and ask for permission. Having bought a suitable diamond encrusted ring (cost me a few quid although, again, can’t remember any details. I wasn’t on cocaine…honest), I’m all ready to shove it on my betrothed’s finger. Phase 2 and 3 were to be dropping in on chez ma-in-law and do the deed and ask the question. Simple.

“I don’t want start any blasphemous rumours but I think that God’s got a sick sense of humour and when I die, I expect to find him laughing.” At least, that’s what Dave Gahan sang in his Depeche Mode heyday in 1984. That also happened to be the year of a very happy trip abroad for me and the lads to Majorca. How I sometimes wished I’d stayed there or at least that’s what I thought as I spurted out the words to my future ma-in-law that me and the future missus wanted to get married. Such was the strength of her character that we’d thought to talk to her first but I didn’t expect her to get all upset that we hadn’t asked future Mrs Mara’s dad in the usual way. Crystallised in that one moment was a lifetime’s hopes and dreams shattered in one unexpected reaction. In the dry ice world of Bing Crosby, my intended’s mom would have looked gleefully happy, grinned quite a bit and reached for the hankies to dab her tearful eyes with. In my case, not so and it was more of slightly purple face going a little purpler a la Alex Ferguson, at the lack of respect for tradition in not approaching the bride-to-be’s father first. I suspect she believed that if he had said no we would have had to have called the whole thing off to or risk the wrath of his double-barrelled shotgun leaning against the wall in the hall.

Needless to say, at that point I disappeared into the basement below where he was working (as ever) and mumbled something about wanting to take his daughter’s hand in marriage. Meanwhile, upstairs, ma-in-law had temporarily suspended her crocodile wrestling just long enough to contemplate that her daughter was going to marry that fool of a banker from the other side of Brum. With something of a contrast, my partner’s father simply smiled and shook my hand. Such blind faith was a welcome development for me as, by now, I was wondering what I’d let myself in for. After all, they say that you should look at your partner’s mother and realise that your intended will be just like that in twenty years time! *shudder*

Now I’ve had a chance to look back in time, I somehow wish that I’d done something dramatic like get one of those old bi-planes to trail smoke in the shape of “marry me” or to have arranged for a mariachi band to have played out the proposal in the guise of a dinner table-side song. Of course, I could also be lying. The one thing I might change is to have done things in the right order. Oh…you know…speak to future pa-in-law then ma-in-law then crack out the cigars and glasses of champers. Then again, my life’s never been as straight forward as that and I guess I should be relieved that we ever got married at all.

Nowadays, I’m a happily married forty-something with a menagerie on the side. I have a reasonable relationship with my in-laws and the sixty mile gap between our respective abodes is just about the right distance. I’m looking forward to the day my daughter and son tell me that they are getting married (not to each other, fool!) and, the truth is, I won’t mind in what order they arrange it. Then again, I did buy that shotgun from my father-in-law just in case my daughter ever does make the wrong decision.

Thanks for reading

Mara

Summary: Obscure reminiscing