Guest Post: Holly: Yes, Dear: Sold on Marriage

Today's post is from Holly the blogger behind Tropic of Mom.  Holly is a super sweet, exceptionally witty and wonderful mama to two little boys.  Have you seen her boys?  Double cuteness!  And, if you are currently drowning in snow and wishing for summer, you're sure to be cheered up by Holly's beautiful, sunny Florida photos.

Men. Women often think men are clueless when it comes to love and the art of wooing women. Some men are true romantics through and through. Other men start off a relationship with effusive adoration for their woman, then taper off after they get the gal and the chase ends. Some men, like my husband, know what they want and go for it -- using sales techniques.

Let me back up a bit.

Madeline has been a bloggy friend of mine since we "met" discussing babywearing, back when Levi was a baby. She is a lovely person -- and really, I don't say that about a lot of people because how many times do you get to say the word "lovely" and not come off sounding merely quaint? Madeline personifies lovely. So I was excited to read that, in her words, she's getting hitched! Because everyone wants to see their friends happy in love. It has been fun to read about Stephen and how he and Madeline met.

Because our Barefoot Mama is getting married the same time of year that I did -- my husband and I just celebrated our anniversary -- I thought I'd share how my husband proposed to me.

Barefoot.

Isn't that perfect for the Barefoot Mama?

See, we were on the beach. We were college students without a lot of money for dates. But this one warm November night, we splurged on an IMAX movie and later headed to the beach, as we often did.

Once we were settled in the sand and listening to the waves, my husband started asking me questions about the future. "Are you going to stay in the area after college?" "Do you think we'll stay together?" "We've had a good relationship for a long time, haven't we?" These were things we had talked about before, because we had been together for years -- since high school -- and I was almost-but-not-quite tuning him out (shh, don't tell him!) because I felt like we had been over it all. So I was humoring him. "Yes," I said. "Yes, yes, yes." Everything he asked me. Yes, dear. It's all true. We've got a good thing going. Yes.

But suddenly one of the questions was, "Will you marry me?" and I said yes without thinking. Yes! Wait a minute -- what did he just say? He tricked me!

My husband snagged me into marrying him using the proven sales technique known as the "repeated yes!" You get the other person used to saying yes so he or she will also say yes to whatever you want that person to do. Clever trick.

And then he sealed the deal by pulling a little black box out of nowhere, with a beautiful ring inside.

Despite the fact I was sold to, and that he pitched marriage to me, well ... to be fair, I have to say my husband is romantic in his own way. And I love him.

I would have said yes anyway.

Yes, I did, and yes, I still do. Yes, dear, yes.

I hope Madeline and Stephen have many years of true romance and love ahead of them!