How We Met
We me through mutual friends. When planning our first date, he asked me where I lived and I said the Upper East Side. For some reason as he was picking places for our first date, he thought I said Upper West Side and thus suggested bars in that area. I almost didn’t show up because I was tired from work and the bar he chose was so out of the way in Hell’s Kitchen NYC (Annabel)!
how they asked
About a week before the proposal, Bharat told me his boss said he was working too much lately and that he should take a day off. Since this was true, I didn’t give it much thought. He took off that following Monday from work, said that we should spend the day together and that he was planning a surprise. I was curious as to what the surprise was and kept bugging him for details. Eventually he told me that he got the excursion on Groupon. That totally threw me off! Bharat surprised me that morning by having a towne car come pick us up. I had no idea where we were going, but the driver mentioned it was outside of Philadelphia. I was confused as to why we would go there when we were already in the greatest city in the world. But given that he went to college in Philly, I thought maybe he wanted to show me around the city (we hadn’t gone there together before). We ended up at a winery about 2 hours away from Manhattan. Once we arrived at the vineyard, we checked in for our wine tasting. The host mentioned that we were “lucky” that we came on a quite day because we essentially had a private wine tasting (when in fact it was actually a private tasting). Again, nothing seemed out of the ordinary to me. After the tasting, the wine presenter offered us a tour of the facility which ended up at their outdoor ceremony lawn. I was completely shocked when I saw what was there. There was a table set up under the arbor with the most gorgeous arrangement of roses in my favorite colors. I whispered to Bharat behind the host that the area was beautiful and it looked like someone was getting married at the vineyard that day. I had no idea that this was all for me. As I walked a little closer, I realized this was all for me! Special details were included that only myself and Bharat would understand. There was a framed photo of us with the caption, “Little Princess” which is my favorite movie, a Scattegories game sheet because it was during that game that Bharat said he knew I was the one, and a framed puzzle piece with our photos to symbolize that we are each other’s missing piece. Lastly, there was a map which was a not so subtle inside joke about how I traveled to the opposite side of Manhattan to go on a date with him! He got down on one knee and proposed. I was so shocked by the whole thing that I said “Nahin, Nahin, Nahin,” which in Hindi means “No, No, No,” but I meant to say Yes, Yes, Yes.” A friendly photographer took our pictures and we celebrated with some sparkling wine from the vineyard. The surprises kept coming when the limo dropped us off at Annabel, where we shared our first date. My friends and family were there to celebrate!