After I surprised G for his birthday by taking him up to Lake Windermere, he decided that he was going to get one (or two…) up on me for my birthday -which happens to fall exactly six months later- by taking me abroad to a secret location. See, he’s already won, hasn’t he?

How to propose like a boss

In the months leading up to our trip, G was certain he’d given it away and that I knew where we were going - even though he’d told me literally nothing and any geography hints were, let’s be honest, wasted on me.

Not until we got to the gate to check in did I finally find out that we would be flying with IcelandAir - I’d had a tiny suspicion, but it still came as a lovely surprise 😀 so off we went. I’m not a big fan of flying because my hearing isn’t great at the best of times, and G was pretty quiet the whole way there, but I figured he must just be tired or not like flying much either…

I knew very little about Iceland before we went. From the parts we saw - mainly the road between the airport and the country’s capital, Reykjavík - the terrain is rocky and fairly flat, allowing you to see for miles, with a few mountainous rocks and vibrant blue lakes to break it up now and then.

Daylight appeared from around 10.30am-4pm, and even when the sun was ‘up’ it was fairly dark and cloudy, like a never-ending dawn in the middle of winter here in the UK - a bit grim and miserable really. Almost every souvenir shop had at least one item referring to the weather in Iceland changing every five minutes - they’re not wrong!

My favourite quirk of Iceland though was definitely the fact that it was like visiting a European Christmas market - we arrived quite a while after January 5th, yet almost every window was decorated with lights and candles. We asked around, and apparently because it’s so dark most of the time people just can’t be bothered to take their Christmas decorations down - finally, an entire country of people after my own heart!

We got to the hotel around 5pm and by this point I was a bit tired, hungry, cranky - you know how it goes. Somehow, G managed to get me into some clothes and drag me out the door to our first night’s dinner reservation at The Perlan, or Pearl in English.

It turned out that we’d passed it on our way into Reykjavik, which G already knew. The building is basically a huge dome sitting high above the city, and in the late afternoon drizzle I’d assumed it was just some sort of observatory. But why should it be a mere building dedicated to science, when it could be just about the most breathtaking restaurant I’ve ever seen?

The restaurant, as it turned out, is located beneath the dome, which is lit up by hundreds of lights at night. And not only that, but the restaurant floor only goes and rotates. ROTATES. Nice and slowly though, it did take me a while to notice, by which point G was about to explode wanting to show off what an amazing place he’d found. We came full circle after about two hours, and got to see a simply amazing view of the whole of Reykjavik and beyond.

Another fun fact about Icelanders - they really love their fireworks. We must have seen over a dozen displays across the city that night - which of course G took full credit for - as well as every other night we were in Iceland. I’m a bit gutted now that we didn’t find out what that was all about.

The food was impeccable. And a little bit unpronounceable. But anyway who cares about the food* WE ALL KNOW WHAT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN NEXT. I knew it, G knew it, his friends back in the UK texting him to ask him if he’d done it yet knew it.

The only one who didn’t know was our amazing waitress who happened to clear our dessert plates just as G was REACHING FOR THE RING.

Right in the middle of us having a sickly sweet heart-to-heart and obviously feeling that the timing was right, there he goes to grab the ring box and gets completely and utterly thwarted. He recovered nicely though - even threw me off the scent a little - and a couple of minutes later dove back into his pocket and popped the question all aquiver with nerves, even though he already knew the answer. Naww.

Before you ask - no, he didn’t get down on one knee. He did offer, but he didn’t want to embarrass me in front of the other diners, and equally I didn’t want to embarrass him after he’d brought me all the way to this fabulous restaurant in the middle of Iceland to ask me to marry him.

How is this for service though - our lovely waitress must have spotted my tears (of joy, shut it) because out of nowhere appeared two glasses of champagne. Clink!

Let’s be honest, I’d had my hopes that all this would happen - we’d been talking about getting married for a while, I’d already drawn up a shortlist of venues, and I might have had my nails done for the holiday. Just in case. Don’t you judge me.

But G totally blew me away in a way I couldn’t have prepared for. I’d never really played out my dream proposal in my mind because I don’t think anyone should feel they have to make a big song and dance out of it, but I will admit that it made me grin like a complete idiot when a friend told her boyfriend that the bar had now been raised. Good luck chaps, sorry if my one shows any of you up. Honestly.

Feeling a little delicate from the day of flying, driving and now drinking, we soldiered on through our final glass of fizz - be rude not to - while G told me the story behind the ring. The stone, he explained, had come from his grandmother’s engagement ring, which she had sent over especially from South Africa for him.

The rest of the ring he designed himself to incorporate aquamarines and with an open claw to show off the stone - which, upon extracting the stone from its original setting, had to be redesigned as the stone was too big. Better class of problem if you ask me 😉

Throughout all the secret squirreling, G would come home late because he was actually working on the design and picking up and dropping off his grandmother’s ring, all while passing it off as traffic. There were even a couple of times where he popped out telling me he was “going to see a client” and I never even questioned it - at least I know I have good reason to be so trusting!

The ring was made by his friend who just so happens to be a local jeweller (G knows literally everyone, we can’t go anywhere without him getting flagged down), who had apparently sent G a horrific photo of the ring in dodgy lighting before he went to pick it up - not really what you want.

Looking back, I did also wonder why G was getting so anxious about ensuring “his laptop” was on our contents insurance in the days leading up to our trip - the insurance of course being in my name in G’s uphill battle to put a ring on it. I can just imagine the poor boy who had to deal with a frantic G instructing him that on pain of death was he to make sure no confirmation emails or letters were sent to me. Eesh.

But despite the fact that for the first time in known history I didn’t get up once during a two-hour meal to go for a wee, leaving G no opportunity to sneak the ring out of his jacket pocket on the back of his chair, and then nearly getting busted by the waitress right in the homestretch, as you can see it all turned out just fine in the end.

And before you ask - yes, G did ask my dad for his permission. I tried to warn G - that’s all I’m going to say.

I am a lucky lady indeed! I’ll be plonking this post in my Wedding Planning category under the #TeamThomas subcat - can you guess what my married name is going to be? Don’t answer that.

Anyway if you look closely you’ll see another subheading, #YourBigDay, where I’m hoping to gather up all your lovely proposal stories and any other posts relating to YOUR WEDDING DAY (duh)!

So please do drop me a line at kayleigh@bluejeanswhiteteeblog.com to submit your guest posts and please help me to fill my little corner of the interwebs with love and other mushy stuff. Cheers!

*Okay, so I forgot to take any good photos of the food so I skipped over that part. Sue me.