Shar's proposal | Kim's proposal

As Shar tells it…

After I learned that I had passed the Bar, there wasn’t anything else really in the way of getting married. The big question for me was what kind of ring I should get to propose with, and how was I going to do it to make it a special surprise, given that wedding plans had long been in the offing?

It took me most of the summer 2002 agonizing and furtively searching for the right ring. I scoured the malls, the web, and any catalogs I came across. Over the last few years, we had occasionally looked at rings. Kim had always intimated in the past that she was not really into big diamonds, and she loved the sapphire ring that I had given her for Christmas gift a few years ago. Ultimately, I decided to buy her a diamond wedding band for the surprise proposal and would later replace the center stone in the ring she always wears with a brighter sapphire. Now that I had settled that - it was just the matter of when and where I would propose.

We had long ago decided that we wanted to get married in Italy. It was always just a matter of timing. It had been a long-running inquiry from family, friends, and co-workers about us setting the big date, and the pressure was doubly on because several close friends were getting married, and a couple of others were having children. Even my baby sister Kimia announced that she is engaged!

With all of this happening, it was natural for us to talk about our own plans. But at this juncture, I was using these opportunities to misdirect Kim, feigning disinterest, and occasionally grousing - leading her to believe that I was not all that gung-ho about getting married in the foreseeable future. But finding a time and place to propose was proving difficult because much of the summer was taken up with celebrating friends’ weddings and births.

It was coming to the end of summer, and I was getting a bit anxious. Finally, I suggested a hiking trip along Point Reyes because we had not been able to do much in the way of outdoor activities in the past year. We set out in our convertible for what was supposed to be a daylong outing. Meanwhile, I had managed to hide away in my pack a bottle of our favorite Italian wine (Castello di Banfi Brunello Reserve) and the plastic gelato cups we had used as wine glasses during picnics in Tuscany (more on that another time).

After we hiked five miles to the beach, Kim stretched out and relaxed in the sand. Meanwhile I was in the background nervously setting the stage, with Kim none the wiser. When I was ready, I got her attention by asking her to do me a favor, and when she turned around, I was on my knees with the ring and behind me I had written “Marry Me?” in the sand. Needless to say she was quite surprised. Her first words were “Are you f—king kidding me?” (she's ashamed to say). Then she said “Of course – Yes.” Even though, after twelve years, I was pretty sure what the answer would be, it still was a shaky, goose pimple moment for me.

We enjoyed the wine and relaxed on the beach some more before hiking five miles back to the car at the trailhead. However, that was not the end of my surprise. Instead of heading home as she expected, I took a sharp turn off Highway 1 to our favorite B&B in Inverness, the Blackthorne Inn, for a night's sojourn in the Eagle’s Nest. Upon checking in, I surprised her with an invitation to a sumptuous dinner at Manka's Inverness Lodge, our favorite local gourmet restaurant, after which we polished off the bottle of Brunello while gazing up at the stars from the deck atop our room. It was a perfect weekend in every way imaginable.