By Cole
Hello fabulous friends and fellow aficionados of love and/or lust! Today, we’re discussing the joyous topic of gay wedding bells and engagement ding dongs!
Guess what? Our VERY long (yes we’re size queens sometimes) engagement period is coming to an end. We’re getting married in June! That’s a short 10.5 months away (12 months in gay math, fyi.)
That’s right—our little story of love and lust and everything in between is getting another chapter. We got engaged back in Feb of 2023. Due to our work/life schedules wanted a longer enGAYgement period to settle into SoCal & reconnect with friends. We know, we know. A nearly 2.5 year engagement is INSANELY long even by straight standards. Here’s a little recap of how we got to this point:
The Engagement
Max: Cole can be a huge sap. Don’t tell anyone but he likes to read gay fantasy romance novels. He’s great at spontaneous romance, but the planned stuff doesn’t always work out. Not that I overly mind- it’s sweet and endearing and it’s just really ‘us’ the way everything worked out.
We decided to treat ourselves to a spa day before Valentines in 2023 – hot springs, hot tubs, cold beer, sunshine. It’s SoCal so February is the perfect time of year. Cole lined up a restaurant for dinner that night and a hotel and we were off for what I thought was a low-key overnight getaway.
Cole: We’re big on communication – so we agreed to get married back in Nov and picked out our rings together. Max’s taste in jewelry varies wildly but we found engagement bands that coordinated but were not identical. What he didn’t know was that they arrived in January and I had been hiding them to do a romantic proposal at just the right time. (He loves a good romcom).
Max: Our day at the hot springs spa was enchanting. We enjoyed massages, mimosas, plenty of swimming, and various mud treatments—we really went all out. What didn’t go so well was the restaurant he chose; it turns out that the day BEFORE Valentine’s Day in Temecula’s off-season is quite dead. No wineries were open, there are very few places to eat, etc. The spot Cole found online looked promising, but in reality… it resembled an Olive Garden mixed with an Applebee’s. Not romantic AT ALL.
Cole: I started to panic. Should I rethink my proposal? I had his ring in a carved amethyst box (purple is his favorite color), but for some reason, the moment didn’t feel right. I wanted to propose but I needed to reconsider the ‘how.’ We laughed over wine about how I’m never allowed to pick restaurants since this happens so often, when an idea suddenly struck me.
We LOVE pranking each other, so why not turn this into that? Under the table where Max couldn’t see, I swapped the silicon ring we’d been wearing with my engagement ring. We kept talking and I carefully hid the box with his ring under my cupped hands. I reached up with my hands crossed in front of me, carefully tilting my new bling to where he could see it. It was all I could do to not start cracking up.
Max: I didn’t notice IMMEDIATELY the new ring but something felt weird. At one point I reached over to grab his hand and it felt cold. I looked down, saw the band and immediately looked up. He pretended to not notice and kept chatting away and I kept looking down at his hand and up at his face again.
Cole: Watching him squirm- waiting for me to say something, DYING to ask me about it, was amusing me to no end. I finally had to break the tension and asked “Is there something wrong?”
“You… you have your ring!!”
“No dear, I have OUR rings”. I opened my hands and pushed the little purple box towards him, carefully opening it so he could see his tungsten and black sapphire band.
We still laugh about that night today. In true Cole fashion I spilled sauce on my shirt, Max was teary, and we got matching rooster tattoos on our ankles that are similar to the restaurant’s logo. For us, it was perfect.
Save the Date!
So mark your calendars, people! Next year on June 21st, we’ll be getting hitched and jetting off for two weeks in Crete as husbands. We’ll share a bit of our journey along the way—we’ve got a venue and a guest list, so now the race to fill in the pesky details is on. It’ll be somehow both subtle and over-the-top, with tons of family and friends to celebrate with and some possibly risqué fun along the way!
As we work on the planning we’ll share with you our highs, lows, and everything in between. You can also follow us on Instagram @justus2chickens for the behind the scenes trials and tribulations. Follow us there or subscribe here to keep up to date!
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