He put a ring on it!

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010 was just like any other day. I woke up late, rushed to get ready [thank god i took the time to do my hair], and headed out the door to work just to submerse myself into the slug-like crawling traffic that is known as the infamous New York rush hour. Once at the office, I went through my daily routines of emails, phone calls, and meetings. Every Wednesday the video staff at Newsday has a weekly meeting to cover any issues that have arose and to critique videos from past and future. I wondered if we were going to have a meeting this week at all, since the past couple weeks the meeting has been cancelled. However, my boss insisted that no one would miss this mandatory meeting at 3PM.

Ian usually calls me everyday at work to check in and see how I'm doing, to let me know he's thinking about me. However, as the hands on the clock continued to circle, the call had yet to come. I began to worry, but chalked it up to being a busy day at the bank for him. When I returned from lunch, I saw the bright red light on my phone illuminate my cubicle. Excited, I quickly punched in my code and immediately heard his voice assuring me he was okay, just very busy with an audit at the bank. He warned that he would not be able to talk for the rest of the day. I ran the message over in my head while hanging up the receiver and I pondered for a moment why it sounded so odd to me. He sounded nervous and overly loving. Lot's of "baby"s and "love you"s...more than usual. Maybe he was just in a very good mood today?

I continued my day, with no thought of the previous events. I felt bad that he was so busy at work when he was supposed to have this "random" week off for vacation. It must have been so hard for him to be bombarded at work when he was supposed to be relaxing at home all week. Various thoughts continued to float around in my head, along with some song lyrics to the music I had blaring in my earphones, when suddenly I snapped out of my internal world and noticed that the weekly meeting would be occurring in five short minutes. I wrapped up my project I was working on, grabbed my notebook, and headed back to the photo room to the conference table which houses all of our brainstorming sessions [along with a make-shift ping pong table].

As I walked into the room, I noticed an increase in photographers/videographers that had joined in on the meeting. "Quite a full room, for a meeting that barely happens," I thought. All of our photo/videographers all happened to have their cameras out, adjusting them, comparing them, etc. Yet another detail I had overlooked as odd. My boss wrangled the troops together and insisted we all sit around the conference table in an orderly fashion. "Wow. He's being anal about our seating today. These are usually so informal." Again. No clue. We start the meeting with normal banter. This continues until my boss unveils a project that I apparently had not been briefed about. His introduction, "So, we've been working on this project for the past few weeks that we want to unveil for Valentine's Day. We went out and did some basic MOS [man on the street] interviews to see what advice people have to give a newly engaged couple."

"Cute," I thought, "However, how is it that I didn't know about this project? Ugh. The communication in this department is horrible!" As we all directed our attention to the monitor, one of the editors pressed play, and this video approached the screen....

During the video, my mind started to wonder. A lot of the interviewees were people that we had interviewed in past stories within the month[including the surveillance video of the famous hit-mom....a popular story that has graced our paper many times about a woman who hired a hit-man to kill her husband because "he pissed her off too many times"]. Something started to seem fishy when Nassau County Executive, Ed Mangano and Olympic gold medalist [and fastest runner in the world], Sanya Richards Ross, started giving advice to the camera. Then I really started to wonder what the producers were thinking when "the chicken lady" from a recent restaurant review was telling her secret to a long and happy marriage. I began to vocalize my doubts of the video when all of a sudden Ian came up on the screen. I instantly started to shake, followed by tears, as I abruptly began to comprehend what was going on. Embarrassed from my rush of emotions in front of my team members, I covered my face and almost fell off my chair.

As laughter filled the room, I felt a tap on my shoulder. There, in person, Ian came out from our green room and had knelt down beside me holding this ring...

I have no idea what he said. I was too busy crying, shaking, screaming "Oh my GOD!!" inside my mind, while trying to wrap my head around what was going on. The clicks of the cameras were encircling us as I snapped into consciousness and heard the very end of his speech, "Jessica, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you please do me the honor and marry me?" With an enthusiastic "YES!" I jumped to my feet and gave him the biggest bear hug I could conjure up. Applause and shouts floated above us as I finally noticed the reason why all the extra photo/videographers graced the meeting....they were all there capturing our special moment!

Apparently, Ian had been working with the entire video staff for the past couple of months to summon up these interviews, filming his part of the video, and putting the finishing touches on the day. Along came champagne, cake, gifts, cards, and more "Congratulations!" than you could shake a stick at. The entire team, along with people who I'd never even met in the office, flooded the room to be a part of our special day. I soon learned I was the only one in the office, in my circle of friends, even in my family that didn't know this was coming. He had the help of everyone special in my life to create an unimaginable proposal.

Later in the day, he showed me a video that he had shot throughout the day, capturing his thoughts, errands, and all the excitement that was built up throughout the day until he was finally able to pop out and pop the question. He interviewed his family members, people at work, and captured the moments in the green room right before he walked out to surprise me.

Here is the video of the entire "operation engagement" going down, along with my reaction....

Let me rephrase myself. Wednesday, November 17th, 2010 wasn't like any other day. That day was one of the most remarkable, unforgettable days that began the journey of the rest of my life alongside my best friend, and the most amazing man I've ever met.