"Yesterday a Karen ruined my boyfriend's proposal to me."
I've always envisioned how I'd be proposed to and my reaction. It's always been something I looked forward to my whole life. Well the part of my life that knew what it was anyway.
Me and my boyfriend have been together for 5 years and have two sons together. Obviously we have had our ups and downs but in the end we have always stuck by each other think and thin.
We always talked about marriage but we just kept getting distracted by our kids and the fact I decided I'll be going to school at some point soon to finally follow my passion career: forensic tech.
Yesterday started out early in the morning as we traveled to a theme park named Carowinds. It's fall so there is tons of fall activities and decor all over and at night they start this thing called Scarowinds.
Carowinds is the same company as Six Flags so basically that Halloween type thing. We went with our two sons 3M and 2monthM and my sister and her husband and their kids 14M and 11F.
Right when you enter the park officially, there is a giant sign kinda Hollywood style that says Carowinds and since it's October, they put a giant angry jack-o'-lantern decoration pumpkin behind it. There are trees and shrubs and it's just beautiful in my opinion. I was dying to get pictures in front of it.
After we got inside my sister wanted me to go to the bathroom with her and her daughter and my younger son. Her son and husband and boyfriend were going to handle the diaper bag check to get in. After we were done she was instant that I change both my kids just to make sure.
FINALLY after what seemed like forever I was able to get pictures with the pumpkin. I've always LOVED Halloween. There was a natural formed line of people to get pictures and we all waited our turns.
There wasn't many people in line at all but plenty of people congregating around the area. Then it was our turn. We took a family photo of me my boyfriend and our kids. I could see 2 families were behind us. A mom and daughter and then a grandma? And her little family group.
After the family photo my boyfriend suggested a photo of just us. What I didn't know was he was videoing us.. not pictures. After the "picture" was done I was about to walk away so they could have their turn but my boyfriend tugged my arm. He was on one knee.
I was standing there shocked in my damn Halloween pants with a baby harness wrap over my body and hair frizzy. That's not a complaint, I love the whole thing. I wasn't dolled up, I was just me. And it was overwhelmingly emotional that it was all happening with my family, in October, doing things I love to do.
Except for one thing... During my fiance's speech he was giving me. He was already so very nervous because he had a hard time remembering words when they are important to him or emotional.
While he was talking, the grandma I mentioned started yelling "Hurry up" and "other people want a picture too" "this is a public place" all of which made it into the proposal video too. She was standing right behind my brother in law and overlapped what my fiance was saying and he cut his speech short.
Obviously I said yes but I feel terrible. To me the proposal was BEAUTIFUL and I loved it. I feel bad because my fiance feels humiliated. He had the whole speech planned out. He had the video planned out for memories of a happy day. He went to great lengths to plan this whole thing out without me knowing. To him, it was all ruined.
He did later on that night tell me the whole speech and I gave him one back on the spot because I wanted him to know it wasn't just a "yes" it's a "I love you too and I want to always be with you".
No one stood up to the Karen in that moment but I remembered her face. Karma ended up getting her later that day though. Scarowinds had started and there were scare-artists walking around.
We were just enjoying one of the music concerts they had going on when we noticed Karen and kept our distance. A scare-artist was near by and Karen was trying to get a picture of herself and her family when the scare-artist ran into the photo screaming bloody murder "ITS A PUBLIC PLAAAAAACE!" Which scared the life out of Karen.
Turns out Scare-artist was the mom that was standing in life behind us with her daughter when the proposal happened. Thanks for reading my story, it's probably not channel worthy but it was mildly interesting to some of you I hope.
Edit: I don't understand where or how this happened but some of you got the impression that I was complaining and upset with my proposal. I am not upset with it. Like I already said. It was beautiful and I loved it.
I understand how the public works and at the same time everyone is allowed to have their turn. This was our turn. Absolutely no one around us was upset except this one woman. What I am upset about is that my fiance feels terrible about the whole thing. I don't like seeing him beating himself up over something that wasn't his fault.
Edit two: we took about the same amount of time as everyone else AND waited in the same line. His speech was simply "will you marry me, after 2 kids and 5 years - I figured it was about time" what was taking so "long" was he had a hard time getting the words out. The "it's about time" is how he "shortened" his speech.
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
Unfortunately when you do a public proposal you have to deal with the public. Was she rude, yes she was. But when you have a place like this. Alot of people want to do photo ops. And given you already had a family photo I can see why this was annoying to other guests. Maybe a unpopular opinion but its a risk proposing in public.
This just shows how self centered we've become. If you're willing to ruin a moment like this just because it slightly delays your turn of taking a damn picture, you're not just rude, you're a complete ah who needs to get back in touch with reality.
I'm so sorry that happened, but in public, you always run the chance of having it ruined by some jerk. When I was first researching where to have my very small wedding, I thought of our city park, which has a gorgeous bridge and willow tree. I called the parks department to see if I could have a wedding there and what the permitting would be like. The parks manager gave me all of the information.
Toward the end of the call, she paused and said, "You don't want to do this." She said the bridge had to stay open during the ceremony, and the last ceremony held there was ruined by some AH who walked over the bridge a dozen times, weaving between all the guests, pushing between the bride and the groom and at one point, just standing still in front of the officiant.
This wasn't the only incident like this, so she strongly recommended against it if people called her, though she gave them the required info on how to do it if they insisted.
So sorry it got interrupted. Congratulations on your engagement. Years from now it'll be a funny story, and so glad your fiance gave you his speech later. Again, congratulations.
I might get downvoted here, but it IS a public space, and with a special theme the park is very busy. You and your boyfriend might enjoy being a spectacle, but everyone else is there to enjoy time with their own people. This is like parents who expect the whole world to be enthralled with their child. Sorry, but I don't think it was the other people who were entitled.