Holly Martin - One Hundred Christmas Proposals

I scrolled down the emails for any urgent Christmas proposals. After our success with One Hundred Proposals, Harry had wanted to carry on the theme but for our clients, not for us. His brilliant idea was to arrange, carry out and blog about one hundred clients’ proposals during the month of December. I couldn’t mind the extra work Harry’s Christmas promotion had created, but I was looking forward to the break. On January first, Harry and I were flying off to Canada to spend two weeks locked in a log cabin – without the internet, phones or any communication with the outside world. I couldn’t wait.

I clicked on an email and read through the request. This man wanted to go snowmobiling. In England. I turned round and looked out the window. The sky was slate grey, rain lashed against the window in great sheets and the trees outside on the green bowed in the unforgiving wind. But not a single flake of snow had fallen since the start of December, and as it was the twenty-first it didn’t look likely that I could arrange that sort of thing by Christmas Day. We could do fireworks, helicopter rides, brass bands, even a ride in a submarine – but I couldn’t make it snow. Instead I priced how much it would cost to go to Iceland for the weekend – they would almost definitely have snow at this time of year and hotels and flights were quite cheap, especially with my contacts.

I sent the details over to him and then noticed I had another email from Alexander. I smiled. This was one of many proposals that were happening on New Year’s Eve, but one that was closest to my heart as it was taking place in St Dunstan-in-the-East, a public garden inside an abandoned church and one of my favourite places in the world.

Alexander had seemed very laidback about the whole proposal and what to include. He was adamant that it should be at St Dunstan’s, apparently his bride-to-be loved the place, but the other details he had left to me. I loved proposals like this, a whole project I could get behind. So far I had arranged for fairy lights to be strewn across the church and around the old windows. Using Harry’s idea that he had come up with for our penultimate proposal with the jam jars, I had arranged for a hundred jars filled with real candles to create a small path through the church to where the proposal would take place. Friends and family were going to be there too so I’d booked a hog roast to cater for forty people. Alexander loved the sound of that. He wanted something to mark their life together so I had suggested that on one of the walls we could arrange for a projector to beam photos of their relationship. Apparently he had a ton and said he was going to create a slideshow of all the best ones. He wanted music but when I’d suggested a harpist, he’d told me to pick something more lively that they could dance to. In the end I’d picked a local jazz band who I loved – Harry and I had seen them on many occasions and there was nothing more romantic than dancing to the soft, happy tones of the saxophone and piano. I wasn’t sure if Alexander would like it as it didn’t really go with the Christmassy theme but when I suggested it to him, he loved that idea too. I had a snow machine booked to add a frosty covering to the plants and trees that twisted and climbed across the walls. I’d even ensured that the snow was going to come with extra glitter. The place was going to sparkle and I couldn’t wait to see it. Alexander had been quite insistent that Harry and I came, and as such this was set to be the big finale for our Christmas Proposals promotion.

This email from Alexander wanted silver chairs to be dotted around the perimeter for the family to sit on and a carpet of flowers – as many different kinds of red flowers as possible. That was an easy task.

I smiled to myself as I sent out a few emails to book the chairs and flowers and then a reply to Alexander to say it was all in hand.

‘What you smiling at?’ Harry asked, staring at me fondly from the other side of the room. I hadn’t realised he had finished his call.

‘Oh I’m just emailing Alexander about the St Dunstan’s proposal. I love this proposal so much, it’s going to be perfect.’

His grin grew at my enthusiasm. ‘What is it about this proposal that has you so excited?’

‘I don’t know. It just feels really personal to me. I just hope Cassandra likes the same things I do, because Alexander is giving me total freedom to create the proposal I want. And you know I love St Dunstan’s. I’d like us to get married there one day – you, me, the stars above us. Nothing could be more romantic.’

Harry turned back to the computer and made a noncommittal sound. I felt the smile fall off my face. Everything had been perfect between me and Harry since we had got engaged. We were with each other twenty-four hours a day, we never argued, our friendship had intensified instead of becoming strained and I counted my lucky stars every day that this perfect, wonderful man was with me. But there was one niggle, one thing that was gnawing at the back of my mind. Harry didn’t seem to want to get married.

I had thought we would get married the very next day after I’d said yes, especially after he’d spent a hundred days proposing to me. But we had returned home after a week of pure honeymoon type bliss without a ring on my finger.

I’d thought then that we would get married in London shortly after our return, with our friends and family around us, but that didn’t happen either.

I had brought it up on countless occasions about setting a date and what plans did he have but he always shrugged it off.

It had only been six months and some people liked a long engagement, but this was normally because the couple were saving up.

But I didn’t think it was from a lack of money – our little company was going from strength to strength and it wasn’t like I wanted an all singing, all dancing big wedding. I’d have been happy if it was me, Harry, the registry office and a trip down the fish and chip shop afterwards. I just wanted to be married to him, to be Mrs Forbes and shout from the rooftops that this man was mine.

I wasn’t sure if it was the demons from his past that were making him hesitate. His parents abandoning him as a child had messed him up spectacularly, but I thought we had moved past his inability to trust.

I knew he loved me, I knew we were going to spend the rest of our lives together, but he seemed to be in no rush to actually get married – which struck me as a little weird with the amount of effort he had put in to ask me to marry him in the first place.

I stood up and scooted onto his lap – he immediately wrapped his arm round my waist, holding me tight as if he never wanted to let me go.

He was scrolling through some photos of us, putting them into some kind of slideshow.

‘What are you doing?’

‘The projectionist wanted us to send some photos over so he can test what they look like projected onto a stone wall. As Alexander hasn’t sent through his photos yet, I’m just sending through some of us so he can test it.’

I looked at the photos of us he was fiddling with and smiled. He uploaded them onto an email, pressed send, and then gave me his undying attention.

‘Harry… we are getting married right?’

‘Of course.’

‘I just kind of thought we’d be there by now.’

‘We’ll do it next year. It’s just been so manic for the last few months. Besides, it won’t change anything between us. Everything is pretty damned perfect, right? We don’t need rings on our fingers to prove our love for each other.’

‘You’re not putting it off for some reason?’

‘We’re getting married baby, I promise you that. There is absolutely nothing that will stop me walking down the aisle with you. I just…’ The phone rang again. ‘We’ll talk about it properly when we go away, when we’re not dealing with this every day.’