Marin and Eric

So, I thought it would be fun to share with everyone how Marin and I met and became engaged/married. Most already know the story by now, but I'll tell it for those who don't.

We met through our friend Kate (at the time O'Hearn) O'Connell. Marin worked with Kate at PwC and I knew Kate and her now husband, Ian, from growing up on the Cape. Kate set us up on a blind date...apparently she sent an email to Marin with all sort of lies about what great person I was in order to convince her to at leat give me a shot. Anyway, we had our first date at the end of March of '02 and really started dating (finally) at the end of June of '02. We were both busy people...our date nights were usually Mondays because we both had other things going on every other night of the week.

Needless to say as time went on, I realized that Marin was the person I wanted to spend my life with. It was time to pop the big question. I can honestly say that I knew this about Marin only 7 months into our relationship. So I started saving and got the ring. The only problem was that I had no idea how I would ask her. It seemed that every week there was some new "romantic" story about how one of her friends was proposed to....there was no way I would be outdone.

I came up with the idea of asking her on my boat (a J22 - 22' Sloop rigged keelboat) and plastering the "big question" on the sail. So, one week, Marin was travelling for work (again) and I took off for the Cape after work to make this sail. It took a lot of duct tape and the agony of having to listen to my sister try to play her guitar (and sing) after 2 bottles of wine in my parents living room to make the sail, but the final product looked pretty good.

The day finally came. August 31, 2003. Marin was so excited to go for our "sailing picnic" that she was up at the crack of dawn wearing what looked like a snow suit (it's not always warm on the cape at the end of August). I had the ring in my pocket and my mother and father were already staked-out (in hiding) at the Yacht club with cameras. I had my father go down to the boat earlier that morning with a cooler containing a bottle of champagne on ice and two silver goblets with our names and the date engraved on them.

When we got to the boat and it was time to raise the mainsail and "do the deed" I made sure that Marin had her head down and was fully concentrated on feeding the luff of the mainsail into the track on the mast - to assure the sail goes up smoothly. When the sail was up, I pointed to it and said "Look!". She looked up and turned around to me on one knee and I asked her to marry me. She said"Yes".....well actually....she didn't say anything for about (what seemed) 5 minutes because she was crying and jumping up and down...but eventually she did say the word "yes".

We then sailed around Hyannis and Hyannisport sipping champagne and enjoying what ended up being a beautiful day to go sailing....