in june, my mom and i headed to india with a dear new friend of ours, two of my friends from college and the pinckneys planning to join us at various stages along the way. oh, and that guy i fell in love with planning to meet us in the airport in hyderabad when we arrived.
we got to hyderabad. tired, smelly. exhausted. and then we waited. and waited. and waited for jon to finally make his way down the escalator to the arrival hall. (i swear, we listened to the same three christmas carols yanni-style for about 5 hours). anyway. he made it. and i was happy to see him. and i think my mom was a little smug at wanting this for us all along. :)
he had let it slip in an email that he was planning to ask me an important question while in india, and let's be honest: it's hard not to try and squeeze as much information as possible out of someone when you know that sort of thing is coming (especially after deciding that, after all this fuss and uncertainty, i won life with this one and couldn't see it any other way.) but he wouldn't budge.
j's parents arrived halfway through the trip (two more rounds of yanni does christmas!). i had a pretty good idea as to where he was going to ask me to marry him, as i routinely identify it as my favorite place in the entire world. on top of that, it was the place where he told me of his feelings a year earlier. (ladies and gents, i got myself a fighter. and a keeper.) the morning his dad arrived, for a minute or five everyone disappeared into one room and left me hanging out by myself. mom came back crying but trying not to. guess dad pinckney has the ring! (they think i'm so clueless!)
from there, we ventured to bapatla. we weren't there very long before our hosts started pestering me and jonathan about going to the next town to go shopping and to "run errands" for our dear uncle. so, with a little suspicion, we went. on the way, our friend johnson started talking about wedding clothes from the front seat (while i sat confused in the backseat next to j). i wasn't sure exactly what was up, but i knew something had to be for us to be sent an hour away to buy saris and dress shirts when we weren't even engaged yet. i threw a mini-fit when i saw the price tag of the sari i liked (5 shops into our excursion- apparently i'm a picky sari shopper), knowing how the orphanage struggles to make ends meet. my protests were met with assurance that this was babu uncle's wish. jonathan and i had a hard conversation where i told him that in addition to the overwhelming generosity of these children and friends of ours, it was also hard for me to be happy about the shenanigans because i hadn't even been asked and been able to say yes yet.
it's nice to be with a guy who listens. he changed his plans from having the kids involved in the proposal to just the two of us, that night, after our family and friends had gone to bed. he asked me up to the roof, got down on one knee and asked if i'd marry him. i, of course, said yes.
want the longer version? check my travel blog. (told you it was the long version! also, i told you jonathan writes well!)
the next day, we had a party- and, how convenient! we had 'wedding clothes!' the orphanage director invited the entire town and the children from the sister orphanage in a neighboring town to come for a several hour long service full of songs, dancing, blessings and the little boys from the orphanage winking at us and giving us 'thum(b)s up' the whole time (which later made a reappearance- at our exiting the church post wedding. i love my life.) it was awesome. there was even a 'happy birthday jonathan and kandyce' cake, complete with a singing lotus flower candle on top! then, everyone sat around the grounds and ate a feast of chicken curry and we lit of fireworks leftover from the fourth of july.
this very well may have been the best day of my life. again, check the link above for the detailed version.
after india, j and i traveled together to egypt while everyone else headed home. i met a handful of jon's friends that i hadn't been able to meet in februrary, spent some more time exploring cairo and even took a 13 hour bus ride from cairo to jerusalem where we spent 3 days in israel. a vacation within a vacation! i went home in full knowledge that i'd never have go to another day without knowing if i'd ever see jonathan again. (because he has the habit of telling this story to, well, anyone who asks, his students his second semester donated money for a plane ticket for me to meet up with him and the rest of them in israel again in the fall.)
and then, december of 2009, he came home for good.
almost one year after our crazy beautiful engagement party, we got married in my hometown. to celebrate our story, we had a hookah bar and i had henna on my hands. i wore jutis, and had a sari sewn into my dress. my bridesmaids wore dresses made from saris, and we danced a bollywood dance. we walked out of the church to thumbs up and a song by aradhna, the band that played in chapel the day i decided to go to india. we served falafel and biryani. we were surrounded by people we love dearly, and who loved and encouraged us along the way. and the day was perfect.
it's been a good year (several years in the making, really). i couldn't have done better for myself, ever. thanks for reading!
we got to hyderabad. tired, smelly. exhausted. and then we waited. and waited. and waited for jon to finally make his way down the escalator to the arrival hall. (i swear, we listened to the same three christmas carols yanni-style for about 5 hours). anyway. he made it. and i was happy to see him. and i think my mom was a little smug at wanting this for us all along. :)
he had let it slip in an email that he was planning to ask me an important question while in india, and let's be honest: it's hard not to try and squeeze as much information as possible out of someone when you know that sort of thing is coming (especially after deciding that, after all this fuss and uncertainty, i won life with this one and couldn't see it any other way.) but he wouldn't budge.
j's parents arrived halfway through the trip (two more rounds of yanni does christmas!). i had a pretty good idea as to where he was going to ask me to marry him, as i routinely identify it as my favorite place in the entire world. on top of that, it was the place where he told me of his feelings a year earlier. (ladies and gents, i got myself a fighter. and a keeper.) the morning his dad arrived, for a minute or five everyone disappeared into one room and left me hanging out by myself. mom came back crying but trying not to. guess dad pinckney has the ring! (they think i'm so clueless!)
from there, we ventured to bapatla. we weren't there very long before our hosts started pestering me and jonathan about going to the next town to go shopping and to "run errands" for our dear uncle. so, with a little suspicion, we went. on the way, our friend johnson started talking about wedding clothes from the front seat (while i sat confused in the backseat next to j). i wasn't sure exactly what was up, but i knew something had to be for us to be sent an hour away to buy saris and dress shirts when we weren't even engaged yet. i threw a mini-fit when i saw the price tag of the sari i liked (5 shops into our excursion- apparently i'm a picky sari shopper), knowing how the orphanage struggles to make ends meet. my protests were met with assurance that this was babu uncle's wish. jonathan and i had a hard conversation where i told him that in addition to the overwhelming generosity of these children and friends of ours, it was also hard for me to be happy about the shenanigans because i hadn't even been asked and been able to say yes yet.
it's nice to be with a guy who listens. he changed his plans from having the kids involved in the proposal to just the two of us, that night, after our family and friends had gone to bed. he asked me up to the roof, got down on one knee and asked if i'd marry him. i, of course, said yes.
want the longer version? check my travel blog. (told you it was the long version! also, i told you jonathan writes well!)
the next day, we had a party- and, how convenient! we had 'wedding clothes!' the orphanage director invited the entire town and the children from the sister orphanage in a neighboring town to come for a several hour long service full of songs, dancing, blessings and the little boys from the orphanage winking at us and giving us 'thum(b)s up' the whole time (which later made a reappearance- at our exiting the church post wedding. i love my life.) it was awesome. there was even a 'happy birthday jonathan and kandyce' cake, complete with a singing lotus flower candle on top! then, everyone sat around the grounds and ate a feast of chicken curry and we lit of fireworks leftover from the fourth of july.
{please excuse the bad hair. it was humid. and we had 300 lbs of flowers on our necks. aren't these little boys just the CUTEST, ever?!}
the day after the party, school was cancelled for children from both orphanages in honor of 'jonathan and kandyce engagement day' and we hired two flat bed trucks, loaded all the children into the back (boys in one, girls in the other) and drove to the beach. we swam, chased crabs ('craps!'), walked down the shoreline. when it was time to come home we piled back into the trucks and sang in the rain as the skys opened up and monsoon rains poured on us. i don't think i stopped smiling the entire drive home.
{one of my favorite engagement pictures.}
this very well may have been the best day of my life. again, check the link above for the detailed version.
and then, december of 2009, he came home for good.
almost one year after our crazy beautiful engagement party, we got married in my hometown. to celebrate our story, we had a hookah bar and i had henna on my hands. i wore jutis, and had a sari sewn into my dress. my bridesmaids wore dresses made from saris, and we danced a bollywood dance. we walked out of the church to thumbs up and a song by aradhna, the band that played in chapel the day i decided to go to india. we served falafel and biryani. we were surrounded by people we love dearly, and who loved and encouraged us along the way. and the day was perfect.
it's been a good year (several years in the making, really). i couldn't have done better for myself, ever. thanks for reading!
4 thoughts:
Google lies.
What an amazing story. And your mom's role in it all really cracks me up :)
my mom cracks me up all the time- my dad is even funnier! :)
thanks for reading. now i just have to come up with something more interesting (or muster up a sense of humor like yours, given that you make a horrible baby shower seem hilarious.)
Love your story! How wonderful that you have it all here on your blog to keep your memories fresh as the years go on!
thanks, laura. :) i'm also fortunate enough to have a little leather bound notebook that hubs gave me for our first christmas together, right before he left for egypt, with his perspective up until the day he moved. total win, no?
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