She’s been waiting for so long and now I’ve finally decided that the time was right. The plans were carefully laid out weeks in advance, my setup was perfect and even the weather played along. In short, everything was just perfect. The universe was simply on my side.

Chantelle and Craig

Saturday morning we woke up, rolled out of bed and got ready, a busy day ahead of us. We had Wayne and Candice’s bachelors/kitchen tea in the afternoon, a quick round of shopping that had to be taken care of and then an evening birthday braai with the family in Bellville. Busy, busy, busy.

However, my carefully implanted suggestion of going out for a nice early morning breakfast in Pringle Bay still held fast and despite the threatening wind in Gordon’s Bay, the two of us finished up, hopped into the car and began tackling the oh so gorgeous ocean drive which proved all the more beautiful because on that side of the mountain the wind had completely died out, the sun was shining ever so fiercely and the silvery blue ocean beckoned invitingly down beneath us.

All of a sudden, after travelling a fair bit, I swung out and ground to a halt on one of the deserted lookout points that litter the ocean drive, stepped out and wondrously marvelled at ‘the view’, taking in the splendour and beauty all around. Of course, as all loving couples do, all this was done with the two of us tightly pressed together, our very presences intertwined in the air all around us.

Time passed and she sat down on the little stone wall, looking out on the sea, when I suddenly ‘remembered’ that I had her birthday gift in my car’s boot, quickly jotted over to retrieve it and shoved it into her eagerly awaiting hands. She graciously accepted it, read the card, chuckled at my little illustration (though not quite understanding it at the time) and then excitedly started ripping off the wrapping paper on what was most obviously a DVD (probably thinking that I had laid my hands on ‘Mamma Mia’ for her – oh how sorely mistaken one can be).

However, her excitement turned to bemusement when the torn paper revealed the movie ’27 Dresses’ to be lurking inside, but even more befuddling was the giant post-it note stuck to the DVD cover simply reading, ‘Just say YES’.

As her eyes ran over these three words, I slowly sunk to one knee and when she caught on just what was about to happen, the words of disbelief just starting tumbling out of her mouth. ‘No, no, no, no’ she continuously muttered as I rolled off my polished words and promises and as I finally asked her to beoh my bride, those negatives quickly changed to positives and with a continuous ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes’, Chantelle became the happiest woman alive on this planet at that very moment in time.

I slipped on the ring, a perfect fit, the bikers who had pulled in alongside us as I went down on bended knee started talking again and that was that. A crying, laughing, shivering, giggling Chantelle joined me in the car and we rode off into the brilliant light, heading towards Pringle Bay for the perfect breakfast to accompany the most perfect of mornings… (despite the limited cellphone reception that meant that Chantelle had to wait just that little bit longer to let the rest of the world know of her happiness!)

So thank you my angel for saying yes to my humble request. Thank you for agreeing to stand by my side, to one day be my wife, to bear my children and to eventually grow old with me.

I love you now, I’ve loved you always, and I will always love you until the end of time. Thank you my angel for being my partner, now and forever.

I love you (and may just be the luckiest man alive today!)