So, I'm engaged.
And aside from the fact that it stamps a clear expiration date on my job as a "single, Mormon twentysomething," I couldn't be happier.
I won't bore you with the details of our engagement night, though if you want to know, feel free to ask Annie (my fiancee). After telling the story a couple dozen times over the past week, she's got it down to a science. And having been present at least half of those times, I've had plenty of opportunity to ponder the uniqueness of a Mormon marriage proposal.
You see, popping the question in the Mormon world can get a little complicated.
Take Reed Harris for example.
In a stunt that's been widely publicized since landing him and his lovely fiancee, Kaitlin Whipple, on the Today show, Harris decided to secretly hide her engagement ring in a Wendy's Frosty.
Apparently, he had initially planned on going the more traditional route and proposing at an elegant restaurant. But when the diamond ring arrived in the mail a day early, that Mormon intuition kicked in and he decided it would be equally romantic to cover the token of their love in chocolate ice cream and have hope she wouldn't swallow it.
Problem is, she did.
Harris had made the mistake of telling all their institute friends about his little scheme. So when Whipple started taking too long to find the ring, someone challenged her to a race. She grabbed a spoon and beat her friends to the bottom of the milkshake.
But she never found the rock.
Several hours and a few X-rays later, doctors confirmed that she had indeed eaten her engagement ring. (As a newly engaged and now penniless man, I feel duty-bound to include the slightly defensive disclaimer Harris provided to Matt Lauer: "It wasn't that small a ring.")
All ended well, I suppose: Harris got down on one knee and presented his girlfriend with a copy of the X-ray, she said yes, and now she won't have to go by the last name "Whipple" anymore.
But I think this story emphasizes a fundamental difference in the Mormon marriage proposal; namely, the implied obligation to "get creative."
This inclination usually starts to manifest itself right around high school prom season, and then continues on to BYU and institute dances. To explain what I'm talking about, I'll quote Eric D. Snider, a former BYU student and current humor columnist:
"In a normal society, people ask other people to dances merely by, well, ASKING them. But for some reason, at BYU, you have to do something clever. For example, a guy might bake a cake with a note inside of it. When the girl eats the cake and reads the note, which says, 'Will you go with me to Homecoming?' she responds to the invitation by, say, setting the guy's bed on fire. Then, to indicate that he received her acceptance message, he has to use computer-hacking techniques to erase all electronic evidence of her identity. She responds to this by maiming one of his family members. And it escalates like that.
"Only at BYU does asking someone on a date require careful planning, extensive props and, occasionally, pyrotechnic devices. The number of fingers lost and eyes poked out prior to Preference and Homecoming dances, due to creative asking methods, is probably enough to create several new people."
I personally think the creative asking methods should stop short of eternal commitments, but what do I know? The only time I ever tried to get creative in a prom invitation was my junior year when I asked Maddie Demuro by writing an article for her in the local newspaper. She said yes, we had a wonderful time and she made out with another guy the next weekend. So, maybe that's why I'm partial to the traditional proposal.
But I guess in the end it doesn't really matter how you ask, but who. And I'm confident I did that part right.
I guess I'd better start looking for a new job...
Editor's note: Congratulations on the engagement, McKay. Let us know when the big day is so we'll know when — to fire you! Or come up with a new name for your column so we can tell the growing body of your faithful readers what you'll be writing about. And for the rest of you still reading along, feel free to nominate someone you would like to see fill the soon-to-be-vacant "Single Mormon Twentysomething" shoes. Really.