We decided we wanted to be married around November 2024. Soon after we started talking to a local jeweler in Santa Monica. Over the next few months, Marlee designed the ring (with some input from me) and we decided that I would be given a window of time to propose: anytime during our summer Eurotrip*.
So back in April I started thinking about how I wanted to ask her. I knew I wanted it to be outside, in nature, preferably a beautiful view, and I didn't want there to be much of a crowd. I thought the Azores would be really special and unique, so I set about finding a spot that fit my criteria. As I researched the island, I discovered the Sete Cidades village, which sits at the bottom of an ancient volcanic caldera that shares its name. The caldera walls surround the village and lake below, rising 500 feet from the lake level in a dramatic vista. I knew this would be perfect. I proceeded to spend hours "walking" all around the caldera, village, and surrounding area on Google street view, until I found my perfect proposal spot: Miradoura das Cumeerias, or the "lookout of the ridges", for the caldera walls it overlooks
I picked June 24th, our second of three days in the Azores, in part because it was the Conjuntion of Jupiter, the date where Earth and Jupiter are directly on opposite sides of the Sun, forming a 3 pointed line. This happens every ~13 months, so not super unique, but a fun way of marking the passage of time. I also found a photographer on the island and worked with her to set up the shot, drawing some stick figures of how I envisioned the photo (see right side of this page). I wasn't nervous, the only thing in my mind was the weather. I picked this location for its sweeping 360 views; however, I read often that this part of the island gets a lot of heavy fog which totally obscurs the vista and would, quite frankly, ruin the moment in my mind.
I was all ready. And then our flight JFK to PDL was cancelled at 3am when it was supposed to take off at 9pm, that's a story in itself. We ended up totally rerouting our journey, pushing our Azores dates back, skipping out on Lisbon almost entirely. It was a rough 36 hours in terms of logistics and we didn't arrive in Sao Miguel until just a couple hours before I had arranged for the engagement to take place. I had emailed the photographer the night before explaining our situation and managed to rebook for Friday. By the time we got to our hotel, it was the time I had planned on proposing. Instead we went for a short hike nearby the proposal spot and found it totallly fogged out. We could hardly see 20 feet in front of us, truly a wall of cloud. It would have been a bad moment for a proposal afterall!
Despite our logistics issues, we had an amazing time in the Azores. But in the back of my mind was thinking how/when was I going to pull this off. There's no guarantees of good weather on any day. Fortunately there is a really great network of webcams all around the island that is purposefully to look out for fog. I was subtly glued to one webcam in particular the whole time we were there, I don't know if Marlee noticed! Finally, on Thursday the 26th, we were driving back to the hotel from an adventure and the skies were opening up. Marlee was asleep in the passenger seat and as I saw the sun shine through, it all just felt right, I can't describe it any other way. I decided on that car ride at ~4pm that I would propose that evening at ~8pm. The photographer could get us the next day, if it wasn't foggy again, I wasn't taking chances.
As sunset approached, I told Marlee we should checkout a sunset spot. She wanted to view sunset from our hotel so I promised I would have her back in time. I drove her to the miradouro and saw it for the first time with my own eyes (not just Google street view!). It was incredible, better than I could have imagined, especially in soft golden hour light. I took her up to the highest lookout point and we could see the whole caldera to one direction, and the Atlantic ocean out the other direction, surrounded by blooming bright blue and gleaming white hydrangeas, a few cows in the distance, but other than that we were totally alone. It was perfect.
I started the speech I had memorized, and Marlee clearly didn't figure out what was going on. She interupted me and as she spoke all I could think about was trying to remember the start of the next paragraph I wanted to say! With this short interlude, I continued and shortly she realized what was happening. I said what I wanted to say, ending with "All you have to do is say is yes", to which she said "you haven't asked me anything yet!". I was getting there! I got down on a knee and asked her, and she did say yes. We spent the next 20 minutes in a state of giggles and tears and euphoria. We took a few selfies, took it all in for us, and then headed back to the car; I did get her back to the hotel for sunset.
The first people we told were the front desk at the hotel. They congratulated us, told us we should have champagne, so we order some and later it was on our bill! Too funny. We had a lovely dinner overlooking the ocean, smiling the whole time.
The next day was clear again and we met the photographer who got some amazing shots, many of which are displayed throughout this website. But what strikes me is this: we were only supposed to be on the island Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, leaving Thursday morning. But those three days were all totally fogged out. The two days we extended, Thursday/Friday, after rearranging our vacation in frustration with an airline who we thought ruined our plans, were beautiful and clear. It was Beshert.
