Reader's Marriage Proposal Story: A Proposal When She Least Expected It

This is part 4 of our continuing series of real readers' real marriage proposals. If you'd like to be included in this directory, send your story, and a photo, to weddings.guide@about.com

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This story comes to us from Weddings.about.com reader Lumba Kalumba:

I am a 40 year old Zambian female with a story to share. My husband Katele and I got engaged in 1991 in a very unexpected manner for me.

He was a divorcee when I met him and had told me how wary he was of getting married again and his fear of possibly marrying a wicked step mum type. I understood and sympathized with his fears, and whilst I loved him dearly, I began thinking maybe I should pull out since he wasn't ready to commit. I had not mentioned my thoughts to him at all, but I had been thinking about it. Anyway, he was a health systems consultant at the time and always traveling to conferences and workshops - and when he traveled, he would ask me to stay with his 3 kids. I began to get along really well with them, and they seemed to have accepted me as the woman in Dad's life.

One day he had just come from Geneva and had a day in Lusaka before flying off to Gaborone. He asked me to go with him to the airport to pick up a parcel from the cargo section. As we were driving along, he casually asked me to close my eyes. When I opened my eyes, I saw he had put one of his rings on my ring finger to see if it would fit. Well, my fingers are rather small compared to his, and so the ring was way too big (even for my thumb!) I laughed it off and said my fingers were too petite for his big rings. (No bells rang in my head and I suspected nothing!!)

He asked me to close my eyes again, and I did so again expecting him to put on another of his rings. Before I opened my eyes, I felt that this time the ring was a perfect fit - but when I opened my eyes, I saw it was a glittering gold ring with 3 lovely diamonds in it!! I was speechless (me, who talks so much) I just gaped and didn't know what to say. After a while he said, "Its real you know." Tears welled up in my eyes I was filled with so much emotion and surprise, but I managed to snap out of my "stupor" and say "I can see that, I just don't know what to say." He laughed as he parked the car. As I came out, I hugged him lovingly and said thank you. Then he said, does that mean you do? And I said, yes, yes a thousand times yes.

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