A night at the theatre: Our engagement story

In my last post I mentioned that we got engaged last time we were in Paris.  Last night we revisited the theatre where Graham proposed and it was so great to relive the moment again after over four years!

Us in front of La Comedie Francaise in 2007.

For those who haven't heard the story of our engagement here it is:

In May 2007 Graham was working on his Masters in Edinburgh, I came to visit him in March and decided to stay in Edinburgh and find temp work and then travel in Europe a bit.  My first trip was to Paris, I booked the flights on a whim the week before and then spent 6 wonderful days in Paris visiting all the museums and meeting fun people at my hostel.  When I arrived in Paris I rang Graham to tell him I had arrived safely, during that phone call Graham told me that he had bought me a ticket to the theatre for my last night in Paris.  I was quite excited about his gift but also realised that I would need to find something to wear since I had only brought tourist clothes with me, hardly good enough for the National theatre!

So, my week passed quickly by and on the Friday I hastily bought a top at H&M before stopping for dinner, then leisurely wandered down the road, in the wrong direction, for about 15 minutes before realising my error and turning around, I arrived quite late to the theatre (despite Graham's stipulation that I would need to arrive half and hour early to collect my ticket) and hurriedly picked up my ticket, went up the stairs, around the corner and.....  there was Graham, standing in the hall, wearing a suit!  I was absolutely stunned to find him in Paris and after a quick hug I then received an even greater surprise when Graham bent down on one knee and asked me to be his wife.   My memory of this whole event is incredibly patchy because the whole thing from start to finish was a complete surprise.  Also, immediately after the proposal we had to go into the theatre (the call bell was actually ringing throughout his proposal) to watch the play.  We had turned to each other as the play was starting and agreed to leave at intermission but there was no intermission!

So that's the story, it was a lovely and thoughtful proposal and marriage has been awesome!  However, all along we have always had lots of jokes between each other about how I don't remember anything about the proposal, Graham took such care in choosing an amazing location and I actually can't remember anything about the way the rooms looked or how nice the building was. 

Fastforward to 2011 and here we are again in Paris with the chance to revisit the place where we got engaged.  We went out for dinner before arriving a bit early to take a new photo outside the theatre.

Then it was time to go inside to finally see the place where we got engaged!  The next two photos are quite poor because we weren't technically allowed to take photos anywhere inside the building. I decided to take exception to this rule, I know, I'm such a rebel.  In addition to the gold leaf everywhere, the huge windows overlooking the square, the chandeliers and the red carpet the side of the hallway that Graham is blocking is lined with marbles busts of famous french playwrights.  Good job Graham.

This is the spot where we think it happened.  The chair in the background is the actual chair that Molière used in his last ever play.  We saw the same production last night, they had got a new chair.

Another terrible shot of the inside of the theatre.  Our seats in 2007 were much better than the ones we had this time. 

After the show we walked to the square in front of the theatre to admire the beautifully lit fountain.

 

I hope we have another opportunity to visit here again one day! 

p.s. The play that we saw was called Le Malade Imaginaire and it was absolutely hiliarious and so well acted, we loved it!!