How Harry Potter Helped My Fiancé Propose

If you're not friends with me on Facebook and are only finding out via the headline of this post, it's true---I'm engaged! And my fiancé proposed with a book. 

A few months ago he planned a vacation just for us. You see, we'd traveled together before, but it was always to see other people. We'd never been on a romantic vacation just for us. 

The vacation was a road trip---upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania---with the highlight of the trip being three days at the beach in Kennebunkport, Maine. (If that sounds familiar, it's where the Bushs vacation, but being liberals that wasn't exactly a selling point for us, haha.) 

First of all, Kennebunkport is GORGEOUS. While there are tourists, they're certainly not out in droves. You can walk a half mile down the beach and not see a soul. So one night we're walking along the beach at sunset. Jon is carrying a backpack with our towels, water bottles and other supplies. Suddenly he says, "I've got something for you."

He reaches into the backpack and pulls out the sixth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. This was the last thing I expected. 

He hands me the book and I'm a little pissed. I have my nice set of mint condition hardcovers of Harry Potter books that don't leave the apartment. I'm persnickety about them, so I said, "Babe! Why'd you bring my book here? There's water! It could get wet! And sand could get between the pages. Or the glue on the spine could melt in this heat!"

"Babe, just open the book."

I look at it awhile longer... Then it sinks in why this is strange to me. Jon isn't a Harry Potter fan. 

"Wait, why are you reading the sixth book? If you're going to read the series you should really start with the first book..."

"No," he laughs, "just open the book."

My brain is still saying "does not compute, does not compute" at this point. So I think a little longer and finally say, "You know I've read this one, right?"

"Jesus, babe! Just open the book!"

So I do. About 300 pages into the book there's a chapter called The Unbreakable Vow. Jon had painstakingly cut into the book so when you opened it that chapter was the first thing you'd see. He had effectively turned the book into a ring box. 

By the time I saw the ring and realized what was happening, he was on one knee. 

As you can probably guess, I said YES! 

Of course, later, I had to ask him if he'd cut up my book. "Oh no. I got a new copy for proposal purposes."

So I got the man and my nice Harry Potter books are still in mint condition. It's a win-win for everybody! 

And we don't have anything planned as yet, but we know it'll include more bibliophile elements because that's what happens when book nerds fall in love.