The plan

The day was March 3, 2009—her birthday. I do things very last-minute and spontaneously a lot of the time, but I was pretty dead-set on making her birthday the day of the proposal.

The only problem was that some adjustments needed to be made to the ring late in the game and as we were nearing the day, I was afraid we weren't going to get the ring shipped on time.

My friend Nando offered to have the ring shipped to his place in Hoboken, NJ to keep it a surprise. So I went to his apartment the day before and told her I was just going to hang out with Nando for the night.

I only slept like 2 hours on his couch because I was so nervous about picking up the ring from the mail the next day (it was delivered to the front desk of his apartment complex). I got the ring, was wearing the same clothes from the day before, and headed home.

Nicole and I have this game for the Nintendo Wii called "Animal Crossing: City Folk" that we play. In the game, we both have characters that are representations of us. You can talk with other animals, do stuff like dig for fossils and fish, and you even have your own individual houses and mailboxes, where you can send letters to other characters in the town.

I mailed a proposal letter reading, "Coley, will you marry me? –Love, Tommy" to her mailbox in the video game.

Putting it into action

We got dinner that night then when we were at her apartment, I suggested we play the game for a bit. She played using her character and her mailbox lit up with new messages. But she thought it was just junk mail—yes, you do get junk mail in the game just like real life—so she ignored the flashing light and said she was going to dig for fossils and fish instead, explore the town. Frustrating because 1) I was really tired at that point and 2) I was anxious to propose and wanted everything to go as planned.

She must've been playing for 30 minutes or so (I wouldn't have known how long because I passed out on the couch sitting next to her) when she opened the letter in her online mailbox and woke me up ecstatically.

I totally missed the cue due to being out cold. I didn't actually say anything and instead fumbled to get the ring box out of my jeans pocket and then opened it up and groggily handed it to her. She said yes and hugged me.

Fun fact: Her character Nicole in the video game now has a wedding dress in her wardrobe and she wears it around town. She bought a fancy top hat for my character as well.

Engagement photos courtesy of Ulysses Photography