Best Proposal Contest

Robert and I had been dating a year and half when he proposed. We already knew that we were going to get married, and I knew he'd been planning a little. What I did not know was how wonderful and creative he is. I had always told Robert that I was more excited by the proposal than the ring or the money - I wanted to have a great story. And, wow, did he ever beat my wildest dreams.

Our proposal began Friday October 5, 2007, at 5 a.m. when Robert tried to wake me to go on a crazy surprise road trip with him; I told him to go away. I am not a morning person. Eventually, he got me to unhappily agree and we set off in the car.

After five hours, we arrived at a boat dock in Thousand Islands, N.Y. We took a ferry across the St. Lawrence River to Boldt Castle on Heart Island. This was not unusual for us, since we have quite frequently road tripped to random places, and had visited castles before since I love castles. That previous year, for Valentine's Day, Robert had taken me to the Biltmore Estate, which is quite close to a castle. So at this point I had no idea the proposal was coming; I just assumed we were on a very cool date.

Well, there we took tons of pictures and I thought that was it and we were going home, but we were not rushing to go home. Instead, there was a surprise stop number two. We go back to the boat dock and Robert ran to the car to get some pre-packed duffel bags. I kept asking him questions about why we have bags and where we were going. A man then came up and said hello to Robert by name - I found them very odd. He led us to a private yacht that we boarded. I was getting nervous now because I had no idea where we going yet again. After almost an hour, we began approaching Singer Castle on Dark Island. As we got closer though, I saw a sign on the side of the entrance that read "Closed for today". It was then I started putting pieces together and realized we had brought bags because we were staying there. Robert had rented the entire castle and its island for the night for us.

We were then taken to the Royal Suite. We had a few minutes to get relaxed and get ready for a tour and dinner. Since the castle was literally ours for the day, we had a three hour tour in places guests can never usually dream of going. We got to sit in chairs hundreds of years old and go in secret passage ways. We were treated like a king and queen for the day. It was beyond amazing.

Then we went upstairs to wait for dinner. Robert and I got dressed up slightly, however, we looked horrible since Robert forgot, in his hurry and nervousness, to pack some of my clothes and his shoes! But we made due and ate a fancy dinner in the one of the grand dining rooms. Then we were supposed to take pictures in the various rooms of the castle and do our own touring, but when I went upstairs to change my shoes, I noticed that there was an extra door in our suite, which I had previously thought was a closet, was slightly open. Robert was trying to get me to take a picture with him in front of the door and nonchalantly turned on the video recording.
However, I ran over to see what was in it before he had a chance to set it up and found that it was another bedroom. The room was covered with flowers, a thousand yellow and pink daisies. This had special meaning to me because in my favorite episode of "Gilmore Girls," Max proposed to Lorelai with a thousand yellow daisies. At this point I knew, and Robert got down on one knee and told me how much he loved me and asked me to marry him.

I accepted and then we proceeded to call everyone. We were so busy calling people we never took pictures till the next day. In the morning we took tons of pictures to remember our castle experience, ate breakfast in the dining hall and went home where my family had a surprise engagement party waiting for us. It was the perfect proposal.


Thanks!!

Amanda Maranino