Luke won’t approve of this, as it is already mid-January, but I’ll say it anyway: Happy New Year! The year 2012 starts out well for Luke and I, as we are freshly engaged and looking forward to planning the wedding. Details will come. We will let you know soon enough.

We got engaged on December 17 on Ile de la Cite, famous for Notre-Dame. We weren’t in front of the church when Luke popped the question, but at a small, intimate park at the front of the island. That morning we went shopping for Christmas presents at Chatelet. For lunch we decided to have a panini and we sat on a bench at the park. Luke promised a special dessert. When the time came, and after a not so good panini for Luke, he brought two kinder eggs out. For the ones who don’t know, a kinder egg is a thin layer of milk chocolate molded like the shell of an egg. Inside is a plastic box with a toy in it that you’d have to build. (It used to be my mum’s nightmare when my brother and I were kids and weren’t old enough to put the toy together).
Anyway, I opened my chocolate, started eating some (as usual) and then opened the yellow box and saw the ring. I looked at the ring and then Luke, who was now on one knee. I was very emotional right away. I couldn’t believe it. For a few seconds we were both silent, just smiling and crying for me, and then Luke asked:
“What do you think?…”
I didn’t let him finish and said :
“Yes, of course, yes”
I took the ring and put it on. It was all very emotional for the both of us. Although Luke will deny it, his hands were shaking.
After that we spent some time talking, enjoying the moment, taking pictures and videos. We then walked to the bridge that faced the island and the park, which happened to be a bridge where couples put locks with their initials. So we did that too. Bought a lock, while drinking small bottles of Nicolas Feuillate champagne, and put the lock on the gridded fence of the bridge among thousands of other locks.