Love and Laughter - Part One

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for a special announcement. We here at BEGarner Broadcasting are hereby initiating a 2-day special event chronicling the life and love of the Brett and Erin Garner family (so far, at least). This special broadcast is in celebration of the day they met and will end on the two-year anniversary of that wonderful evening (aka "tomorrow"). This broadcast, officially titled “Love and Laughter” (also known by its working title “What Was She Thinking?”), will outline, in sometimes painful detail, Brett and Erin’s life together, to date. Our regularly scheduled programming will recommence in approximately two-three days, as we wouldn’t want to deprive you of our main feature, and the real reason you tune in, for too long. We hope you enjoy this special feature. (P.S. This is long... really long... I won't feel bad if you don't read it.)

Love and Laughter - Part One:

Setting the Opening Scene: February 25, 2006 at the LDS Morristown, NJ Stake Center. The Young Single Adults group was holding a regional dance, a fairly regular occurrence. Unique for this fateful night were a couple of the attendees; first was the geeky guy with a laptop who’d been suckered into being the dj, second was the gorgeous redhead in the super-soft lightblue sweater who had been dragged to the event without foreknowledge that it was actually a dreaded dance.

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Erin and I briefly sat next to each other at the pre-dance dinner. As soon as Erin stepped away from the table I leaned over to a friend and demanded to know who this new girl was, and at the same time on the other side of the room Erin was asking another friend who I was (she apparently left either her glasses or her good sense at home that night). During the dance, we kept looking at each other, though I wisely refrained from actually talking to her… I had quickly learned that being a dj at a church dance meant suffering through endless complaints from those who’d put in absolutely no effort and yet still thought they could do a better job, so I was pretty grumpy and had I spoken up would have probably scared off this stunning picture of perfection (sometimes I astound myself with my impressive forethought… other times??? well, never mind).

Luckily my mood improved considerably after the dance; several of us stayed late to clean up and ended up turning the music back on and goofing off late into the night, finally giving me an opportunity to get a few words in (un-tainted by grumpiness) with this mysterious beauty. Desperate to spend even a few minutes more with Erin, I offered to treat her and a friend to a late-night snack at a local diner and afterwards, still unsatiated, I practically begged them both to stop by my apartment to watch a late-night very-early-morning movie. I’m not entirely sure what we watched (possibly The Count of Monte Cristo), but remember vividly the joy at cuddling up with this cutie and holding her hand (early in the movie she ended up falling asleep in my arms and it broke my heart to have to wake her up to send her home).

This started a pattern of spending every possible moment together. Despite our own "better judgment" (which by now had been unceremoniously thrown out the window), within days we had exchanged I love you’s and were discussing plans to get married. Our first official date occurred seven days after we met; knowing Erin’s love of theater and still desperate to impress, I surprised Erin with excellent seats at the musical production of Chicago on Broadway.



Fast forward 2 more weeks and I was dropped into what was probably the most terrifying event of my life… meeting Erin’s parents and asking her father’s permission to marry her. My psychological-survival reflex has mostly blocked this day from my memory, but I’m sure it went something like this: “Hello, Mr. Etter. It’s a pleasure to meet you, my name’s Brett and I’d like to marry your daughter.” … … [silence] … …

After a little while Erin returned and saved me from what might have been either (1) a quick, but undoubtedly painful death or (2) a complete mental breakdown due to being sucked into the black-hole of silence that filled the room. Eventually, several discussion filled hours later (“No we’re not going to move in together first…”, “Yes we’re sure…”, “NO! We’re DEFINITELY not pregnant!!!”), Erin’s parents gave their blessing (half-hearted though it may have been), and we kicked it into high gear getting ready for the wedding set a mere two months away.

Grand images of a beautiful wedding and reception filled our heads. It was decided that a civil wedding would be held on June 3rd so that Erin's family could be with us, and then we figured we'd get sealed in the temple later. But first there was the small matter of actually proposing to take care of.

Obviously Erin knew I was going to propose... there was no question of "if", only a question of "when". In a stroke of luck/brilliance I had her absolutely convinced that I was going to propose in early April, but I had different plans. My family was coming up from North Carolina to stay at my aunt's beach house on the Jersey Shore in late March and we were planning to go visit them for a couple days... this was my chance to surprise her. In league with my whole family I got everything set up. Under the pretense of showing Riley some stars, I set up my telescope on the roof of the beach house. Then after signaling Kariana and Riley, they headed back inside and I turned on the charm... or at least my best effort.

As a little background, Erin loves stars; really really loves stars. So I figured I'd incorporate that into my proposal. First came the ring. Without Erin knowing, I actually bought two rings, one for the setting she wanted and one with a special "White Star" diamond and combined the best of both into one, inadvertently loosing an unearthly creation that has threatened the very existence of the universe itself... okay, scratch that last part, I get carried away sometimes. Anyway, I had this "star" engagement ring for Erin and figured I'd supplement it with naming a star after her.

Up on the roof of the beach house, I pointed my telescope to her star, showed her the certificate for her star, dropped to one knee and I asked her to marry me. I was a bit nervous, and when she responded I actually thought she said "No". We just stared at each other for a second, me disbelieving what I was hearing, unable to process it; her not sure why I wasn't responding. (Erin will tell you that there's a pattern of me being a less-than-stellar listener starting here...) Finally we sorted out the fact that she did in fact want to marry me, and I was in fact quite happy about that. Then we headed back inside where my wonderful family had transformed the beach house into a candle-filled nest of romantical feelings, along with a bottle of sparkling apple cider. The next day Erin and I went out on the beach and took a whole slew of pictures that we used for our announcement.



To be continued...

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Don’t miss tomorrow’s exciting revelations! Do Brett and Erin really get married? Will Jacque finally confess that he’s Joshua’s murderer?? Will Isabella discover that Ethan is her real father and that Nicholas is a spy from the New Zealand government here to identify the thief of Isabella’s cousin’s half-brother’s illegitimate daughter’s candy necklace??? Tune in to find out on... “Love and Laughter”.

Today’s episode brought to you without commercial break by Dark Chocolate M&Ms. They’re good. Maybe too good. Except how can chocolate really be “too good”? Eat some today, or send some to Brett… that would be really nice of you.


Update: I posted this 10 minutes ago and then had Erin read it, she hadn't known I was writing this. Anyway, after reading it through and inserting the obligatory giggles at all the right places, she said "I'm so glad you're finally writing this down, we've been meaning to do this for so long." My response: "We have?" after which Erin tilts her head, looks at me quizzically, and responds "I've asked you several times to write this out so we don't forget the details..." And with that I point you once again to that pattern of stellar listening capabilities of mine. Absolutely stellar.

Labels: Erin, family, love, pictures

posted by Brett at 9:54 PM