Month Old but Great!

Last month, Paul and I took our friends to the Dodger game. I am lucky that our company has season tickets that used to be directly on the Dodger dugout (now they’re the first row behind the fancy “we serve you” seats”). This makes it super easy to get on camera AND we get a great view of Alyssa Milano, Larry King and various other celebrities who attend.

Since she’s a Dodger Blue fan for life (check out her fan gear here!), Alyssa is at every game we go to. She’s super nice and always has a smile and a wave for fans, even though I know she must get tired of people constantly haranguing her.

Anyway, months before the game I asked Brian (he works with Paul) if they were interested in going to a game with us (despite his Bo Sox fanaticism), since they’re great seats and always a great game. He said to check with his girlfriend Kelly Ann about scheduling and we agreed on July 26th. Little to Kelly Ann’s knowledge, Brian had plans.

They were going back east over the summer break to visit and see their families, and while he was there, Brian was asking Kelly Ann’s parents for permission to marry her as well as attaining the heirloom ring from his mom (it was his great-grandmother’s!). Brian knew a guy who was a camera man at Dodger Stadium, where they do the “Kiss Cam” (we all know about the kiss cam). He arranged with Paul a Dodger Kiss Cam proposal. He then told Paul not to tell me!!! He thought I wouldn’t be able to keep quiet, being a woman who is married, and apparently hormonal (yeah, I know, wtf? You DO realize these are MY company tickets, right?).

So, Paul told him that he HAD to tell me, it’s a husband’s duty (as he SHOULD learn, ha ha) to not keep secrets from his wife, and seriously I could keep a secret! Months out, Brian had the ring and was ready. Nervous but ready. The week before the game, he calls Paul in a panic. The ring box the ring came in is HUGE, he said. Is there any way Amber could hold it for him in a purse or something? Paul said sure, as I usually carry a gigantic bag anyway.

The plan was this: we’d show up to their place, get a tour from Kelly Ann, during which Brian would place the hearse-sized ring box in my bag that I would leave out on the stool. Then we would leave for the game, and watch batting practice. During the fourth inning, they would do the Kiss Cam, and then it would happen.

When we arrived, we were in luck- there was a celebrity baseball game going on before the actual Dodger game! So we got to see Rob Lowe, Kevin, Roy and Meredith from “The Office”, Larry King, Tom Green, and a bunch of other people I can’t remember. We got a wave from Kevin! Sadly, that WAS exciting. The guys went to get food and Kelly Ann and I stayed there waving to celebrities and camera men. When the guys came back, Kelly Ann said, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we were on the Kiss Cam??” Brian shot me a panicky look, thinking I spilled the beans. Nope, not THIS girl. I then asked her what she thinks they do when they zoom in on a couple they think are dating, when are in fact, brother and sister or cousins. That got Brian off my back for a bit.

At one point, the Black Eye Peas song “I’ve got a feeling” or “Tonight’s going to be a good night” whatever it’s called came on and Kelly Ann and I both grudgingly admitted to liking the song. I was so thinking in my head, “Tonight IS going to be a good night!!” Still, didn’t say it! When Brian and Kelly Ann went to get more beers (he’s a nervous drinker, I think), Paul told me that at some point we would have to switch places so B could be in the end seat, since that’s what the camera man was looking for (so you’re saying he would confuse Paul and I, a pregnant woman and a man wearing a shiny wedding band, with them? hehe), then Paul would pass him the ring from my bag to B’s hand. Somehow. Magically.

We had switched seats while they were gone, with the excuse that Paul couldn’t hear as well from that side. So, the scene was set. When the time came to pass along the gigantic ring box, Kelly Ann was turned around facing me, when Paul was right there trying to pass it off. So I distracted her by pointing out a man in a cut-off yellow tank top, joking it was his “Fancy Baseball Game Attire”. The deed was done.

The Kiss Cam music began to play and the camera man pulled in front of the couple next to Paul- not Kelly Ann and Brian. Kelly Ann got soo excited! “We’re going to be on KISS CAM!!” A woman started walking down towards us with a cardboard sign in her hand, but since we were so used to kids standing down there trying to get autographs she didn’t think a thing of it. I took my camera out of my bag and aimed at her when the camera man moseyed over to them. “Noooo! Take a picture of the jumbotron!!” Damnit! She’s ruining my plan to capture the moment! So the camera is rolling, she’s looking at them up on screen, moving in for a kiss… Brian gets down on one knee, ring box in hand. Kelly Ann jokingly shoves him away, then a split second later puts her hands to her face. The girl with the cardboard sign holds it up, “SHE SAID YES!!”

Picture Courtesy of Alyssa Milano

Kelly Ann can’t believe it. She hugs him, he hugs her, Alyssa Milano in front of us took a picture of them- the above picture. And tweeted it instantly, as seen here. We all celebrate.

After a bit of the hullabaloo has died down, Alyssa comes over to congratulate them, and let them know they were just “tweeted” and that people from all over are congratulating them. B and Kelly Ann had no idea what she was talking about, so I went to her Twitter page and showed them the pic along with the congrats. You guys should read the comments, some of them are hilarious. A boy who caught a ball gives it to them as a congratulations, bringing already very drunk and emotional Brian to tears. They have the kid sign and date the ball for them. SUPER cute.

Kelly Ann turned to me, “You knew about this all along??” I said, “Sure have!” Brian thanked me a few weeks ago, because he never could have done it without me, and told me how great it was. I was so glad to help a couple in love!

Funny tidbit: Brian proposed wearing Boston Red Sox knee socks. Her dad is a Yankee fan through and through. Proposing at a Dodger Game, wearing Bo. Sox socks to a woman whose father is a diehard Yankees fan? Priceless.

Also: Alyssa Milano is super cool.