Sharing Blankets

I officially became Mrs. jigg on Friday, September 3, 2010. The wedding was short notice and somewhat unexpected, leading some family members and friends speculating about a potential baby on the way. For the record: I’m NOT pregnant.

We originally planned to get married next September – with the tea ceremony, western ceremony, BBQ reception, and the whole shebang. However, a couple of weeks ago, jigg’s dad (who was never a fan of a long engagement) suggested we do a civil union before he flies back to China in mid-September – probably so that he can bring happy news back home. jigg and I didn’t have a problem with it since both of us were eager to do it anyway. My mom and aunt had planned to visit NY for the long Labor Day weekend, so the scheduling worked perfectly.

jigg ordered his ring online, THE ONE RING in black tungsten a week before while I had to put a custom order for mine because my ring size is just so ridiculously small.

Our wedding was simple. On Friday morning, jigg and I went to the Staten Island City Hall. Our guest list was small, consisting of my mom and aunt and his parents, sister, brother in law, nephew, and best friend. We didn’t mass announce our wedding because it was impossible to fit everyone in that tiny little room. I wore an old white summer dress and flip flops while jigg, being jigg, suited up.

The ceremony was short, lasting less than 15 minutes. The Officiant skipped right to the important parts: asking for objections, confirming with the witness, exchanging vows, etc. My biggest fear was that I may not get the ring into jigg’s finger when it was my turn. But everything turned out well…the Officiant and jigg even cracked jokes with each other throughout the ceremony! The Officiant originally asked how I pronounced my Chinese name – I didn’t tell him to use my English name because it wasn’t the name on the license. However, when he asked jigg why he was here, jigg referred to me by my English name instead.

Officiant: (to me) What name do you want me to go by?
Me: (to Officiant) Karen.
jigg: (to Officiant) Yeah, I didn’t find out her real name until much later. She lied to me at the start too!

At the end of the day, the marriage life isn’t anything different. Yet, actually being Mrs. jigg feels much more awesome.

So after packing his lunch almost every day for the past couple of months, jigg finally saved up enough of his lunch money to surprise me with an engagement ring! The proposal was a complete surprise since I didn’t expect him to save up so much money so fast.  The poor guy probably starved himself for that rock.

It happened during his birthday dinner at Strip House.  After we were seated at our table, we were just chatting like we always did.  He smirked over something I said while we waited for our food and I asked him what he was laughing about.  He then said that he had a question to ask me.  When he popped the question and held out the ring, I thought he was kidding!  Of course I said yes and then made him put the ring on my finger to make it legitimate.

It was my first time at such an expensive steakhouse, but I could hardly even remember how the food tasted after the proposal.  I was so happy, ANYTHING would have tasted like a gourmet meal to me.

“How could you talk about your wedding before proposing?” asked a friend of mine.

“Why not?” I responded.

“Because it spoils the surprise!” she screamed.

“Spoil what surprise? She already knows I’m marrying her no matter what. Besides, she won’t see it coming,” I responded.

This was one of many variations of conversations I have had with a bunch of different friends the last couple of weeks. Why does marriage have to be a surprise? If you both know how you feel about each other and you both have always had the goal of marriage, then tying the knot is inevitable.

Karen isn’t going to be surprised that I’m going to be proposing to her. She’s going to be surprised with when and how I do it. Unless of course, she knows me so well that she can read my thoughts. This is going to be fun.