She said yes. :)

Well, last night was the night. I set up a gondola ride for me and Stephanie, and it was just my luck that the night I wanted to propose, that the temperature would drop to 38 degrees, in April, with the possibility of rain and snow. (light snow flurries were going on earlier in the day)

We get into the gondola and I take out the blankets, and the gondolier hands us 2 more blankets, so overall it wasn't that cold. Then the gondolier breaks out some chocolates and champagne.

We start going down the canals, making sure to kiss under each bridge. (apparently that's tradition and what you are supposed to do)

We get to this lake area (a turn around point), where the gondolier asks us if we would care for a song. I said sure, and he procedes to sing as loud as he could. At this particular point there is some high scale apartments on one side and people were coming out of their apartments to find out what the noise was. The reason for the loud singing was so he could put the "message in a bottle" into the water without Stephanie knowing. (obviously I knew....I planned it. ;) ) He finished his song and circled around and he told us that this is his favorite place....until people trash it up. He asked Stephanie if she would mind picking the bottle up out of the water. He said you can look in it if she wanted or just put it in the boat. Well she didn't hear the first part and put the bottle in the boat. I asked her what it was, and she said a bottle. She said "there's something in it though". I said "Why don't you let me see the bottle" so she would pick it back up. I told her to see what is in it, and she pulled the ribbon out and out came a scroll with a letter I wrote. It said a lot of mushy stuff, and at the end of it, it read "Will you marry me.", and then I asked her. She said yes. :)

Now the next step will begin with the planning, and she is very excited about it.:grin