Telling The World (Dan's Version)

Posted by: Dan on Aug 05, 2007

After I proposed to Brooke she mentioned needing to make a ton of phone calls. The process of telling the world our good news had begun. There was one little snag though, neither of us had brought out cell phone with us into the (Bristol) Renaissance Faire.

At first I was a little bummed out but that was short lived. While I wanted to tell everyone it just felt right that Brooke and I had the chance to enjoy the moment by ourselves for a few hours.

When we left the faire and went back to the car I thought Brooke would start making calls, but rather than doing that we did some wedding planning in the car. Okay so it wasn’t planning as much as tossing ideas around, but it was pretty darn exciting.

On our drive back home we were close to my dad (Glenn) and step-mom’s (Cheri) house so we decided to stop by and tell them the good news in person. We stuck around there for a little while after we told them and were congratulated but then it was time to get some food so we went back to my apartment.

It’s funny because even though I was dying to tell everyone, as I’m sure Brooke was, we didn’t make any calls that night (Saturday Aug. 4). Sunday was a different story.

I’m not sure what time it was but my phone rang and I saw on the caller ID that it was my sister (Jen). I pick up the phone and say, “Hello” but I don’t even think I got to finish that before I hear her shout, “What the hell?!” Turns out she talked with my dad who told her the news. I was going to call her later that night because she was suppose to be up north with my mom (Carole) and some of my aunts and cousins for a “girls weekend.”

The conversation with my sister was difficult – mainly because of all the questions and not having any answers yet. What day? What church? Where’s the reception? And so on. The roughest question was “Who’s going to be standing up for you and Brooke?” Now Brooke had mentioned to me that she was going to ask Jen to stand up but I couldn’t say anything about it. So I had to dart around the question.

The next on my list of who to tell was my mom. I called her but got her voice mail (as always). I tried to be all normal about the message so she wouldn’t have a clue. When she eventually called back I told her, which she then proceeded to tell my aunts and cousins who were with her. So in the back ground I hear a lot of noise and a few, “tell them congratulations”. Of course after that I got the list of questions once again.

So here’s a tip…

When you’re set to tell everyone you’re engaged be ready to do one of two things. The first option is to have a lot of details ready so you can tell them where the wedding will be, what day, what time, where the reception hall is, who’s standing up, etc., etc., etc. – It’s highly unlikely you’ll know all that so your only other option is to be very prepared to say, “We’re not sure just yet” a whole lot.

From then on I decided that I was going to take my time letting people know the good news. I made a few calls a night to people just in case they wanted to talk for a while – which usually was the case. I don’t remember the order I told people but I do know that after a while it gets tiresome.

Please don’t read anything into that. I don’t like being the center of attention – I find it difficult and I become awkward. Plus I’m not a phone guy, in fact I hate being on the phone. And of course that’s how I told the majority of the people.

That’s my side of the story – I left out how Brooke went about it just in case she feels like she’d like to share that with everyone.