Wedding:

The Proposal

Prologue - Jen's Dissertation Submission

Proposal - June 26th, 2000

Epilogue - Informing the Masses (coming soon)

Prologue

Travis and Jen had decided long ago that despite their obvious compatibility and in-love-ness, it would be best to wait for serious marriage talk until both of them had finished their doctorates. This decision was based on the fact that Jen could be easily distracted from dissertation work, and planning a wedding may result in no dissertation at all. They also felt that they would not actually be adults until they left school. Well, they still don't feel like adults, but it was a good theory.

Jen defended her dissertation on June 2nd, 2000, only three days before she left to return to Camp Michigania for the summer. Travis had already had the proposal ring made, and brought it to her defense, in case that seemed to be the right time to propose. After the successful defense, Jen sat in a chair in the conference room, still shaking, with her parents and Travis standing around her, bestowing congratulations. Travis said, "So, do you feel like you're done?" Jen knew somehow that this wasn't a casual question, and had to answer honestly that no, she didn't feel done, because the final edits still needed to be done on the dissertation, and the final copy needed to be submitted to the graduate school. So the ring stayed in Travis's pocket.

So, Jen left Travis for the beauty of Northern Michigan. She worked on her dissertation edits in her limited free time, and finally completed them and received approval from her advisor, Dr. Anthony Wojcik. The dissertation could now be submitted to the graduate school.

Jen drove down from Camp and met Travis in East Lansing. He wanted to be with her when she submitted it, and she really felt that she needed his support and help with the final details of getting it submitted. They spent the day formatting, fixing tiny problems, and getting it ready. The time for the final printout came, and the only printer available was putting tiny streaks on the pages, but Jen decided that the graduate school couldn't possibly be that picky, right? Wrong.

They rushed to the graduate school office, Jen screaming at Travis when he paused at a stop sign instead of running down some poor student. Heart pounding, Jen ran into the building and found that the door had been locked, with the closed sign staring her in the face. Desperate, she knocked on the door. Luckily and astonishingly, a very nice woman came and let her in, and agreed to accept the dissertation. Until she saw the streaks. She understood why Jen was desperate, having driven four hours south to turn it in, and hated to refuse it, but she upheld her position admirably and sent Jen away with her marred dissertation.

Jen and Travis returned to the Engineering Building where, after cleaning a different printer to ensure perfection, they printed a clean copy of the dissertation. Despite the fact that the dissertation haad not actually been turned in, they still celebrated by going to Outback Steakhouse with Mike and Delia, where Jen consumed her favorite meal, Alaskan King Crab Legs, as a reward for the terrible day.

Delia offered to submit the dissertation in Jen's stead first thing the following week, and Jen and Travis headed up to Camp Michigania to attend the New Staff / Old Staff party on Friday night. A long-standing tradition, Jen didn't want to miss the festivities.

The weekend came and went, and Monday arrived with much anticipation. Delia had agreed to call Jen at the Nature Center at Camp after the dissertation had been submitted. Jen paced the Nature Center all morning, but no call came. Delia is a morning person, and Jen knew that she would take the dissertation over as soon as she woke up, because she knew how important it was. Lunchtime passed with no call. Finally, Jen called Travis, who was lounging at her cabin, and asked him to check her email to see if Delia had been unable to call, and had emailed instead. Jen was sure, at this point, that something terrible had happened to forestall the submission of the precious paper, and Delia had been too kind to call and tell her, choosing to deliver the horrible news by email instead.

Travis eventually came to the Nature Center, and in answer to Jen's query, "Any email from Delia?", he replied, "No email from Delia." It was the first time that he ever lied to her. She was upset, but made it through the last half hour of work, then went back to her cabin with Travis.

As soon as he had her alone, he confessed his dishonesty. He said that in fact there had been an email from Delia, and that she was now officially Dr. Jennifer White. Much rejoicing ensued, and everyone in Camp was informed of this happy event. Finally done!

Proposal - June 26th, 2000

That night, Travis and Jen went for a walk around Camp, Jen's favorite place in the world. They walked past Riding, where Jen had taught countless riding lessons. They wandered past Boating, where Travis had spent the summer of 1999 as a captain, guide, and instructor. They walked through the fragrant path between Boating and Swimming, and along the road toward Arts and Crafts. They continued up to a wonderful hill for stargazing, referred to as the South Upper Tennis Courts, for those who are familiar with Camp's geography. It is the highest places on Camp, and is surrounded on two sides by the forest, which at night is pitch black.

They lay there on the hard ground, watching the sky, though the hazy clouds revealed few stars. They talked of life, and how scary it was to have finally finished with school, with all of graduation's implications of adulthood. They talked about Jen's reluctance to accept the fact that now choices must be made that would affect the rest of her life. Travis admitted that he was nervous, as well.

He then sat up and said, "That being said, I promised myself that I would do this." He made Jen stand up, while he knelt in front of her on one knee. He brought out a small fuzzy gray box, opened it, and said, "I can't imagine spending the rest of my life without you. Would you marry me?" As you have probably guessed, Jen quite happily said yes!

Travis then pulled out a flashlight he had brought so that Jen could see the ring that he had had made for her. It was beautiful! It is a puzzle ring, which means that it is made up of four pieces, which twine around each other to create a braided design. This ring is special, because Travis had it designed to have a six-petalled flower displayed on the top. There aren't many six-petalled flowers in nature, but lilies are an example. Amazingly, despite the fact that Travis had agonized over the size and eventually guessed at 7.5, it fit absolutely perfectly.

They lay there on the hill for another hour, for the hazy sky had cleared, revealing the glow of the Milky Way across the black Northern Michigan sky, with Cygnus the Swan directly above them. They talked about how their lives would be together, who would be a part of their wedding, and how to tell everyone.

Eventually, even the warmth of their new status as as engaged couple could not keep the cold of the night from penetrating through their layers of clothing, so they had to leave the hill of their engagement to seek warmer climes.

Epilogue

They decided to tell Jen's parents first, because then Travis could ask for her father's blessing. He had not asked John for Jen's hand, because he never knew when Jen would consider herself done with the PhD, and didn't want to ask for her hand, thus informing her parents of his intentions, when he may not have the opportunity to propose for months, leaving her parents to keep the secret. They considered calling them at that moment, but it was 3:00 in the morning in the real world, and nighttime phone calls, no matter how joyous the news, can cause a sleeper much distress and fear.

They decided that it would be best to tell all of the parents in person, so that necessitated waiting until the weekend, when Jen would be returning Travis downstate and attending her family reunion. It was really difficult to keep the secret. Jen was wearing the proposal ring, which, while not a diamond solitaire, was still being work on the ring finger of her left hand. Although she had certainly worn rings there many times, now it felt blantently obvious to her that it was different. She kept her hand hidden a lot of time to avoid questions, because she is well known to be a terrible liar, and she knew she couldn't keep that secret.

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