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I have been in love with Philip Silvestri since we met almost exactly 5 years ago. So last week when I finally heard the words “will you marry me?” accompanied by a ring more beautiful than I could have imagined I was quiet honestly dumbfounded.
Our beginnings
Philip and I met at the Casa de Campo villa of a good friend, Benny Abad. Having spent the evening with 3 friends at the Beach Club by Le Cirque invited by Chef Alfio Longo, we continued the “party” at Benny’s… and there he was. For me it was love at first sight, after a little idle chit-chat I actually took myself off to the bathroom to compose myself. “This is the man you are going to marry”, I told myself as I prepared to “play it cool.”
He took a little more convincing. From the start he claims he “knew there was something special” about me, but that he needed a little more time to figure it out. As it happens, for me as well as for him, the idea that I had met “the one” took a little time to sink in and we started out as friends, for the first few weeks at least.
Celebrating our first New Year’s Eve together, 2008
A little before Christmas 2008 we started “dating”. He took me to a private cabaña at the Beach Club by Le Cirque for my birthday, we went out for dinner and drinks at the Marina Casa de Campo and Altos de Chavón, and a little while later we started to attend “Casa de Campo events” together; the “Quinceañera” party of Priscilla Jorge (at the time one of my students at the Abraham Lincoln School) and the Hogar del Niño Weekend. I was both overwhelmed and excited, I was firstly head-over-heels in love, but secondly completely terrified of meeting so many new people and attending such big, glamorous events. It took some getting used to.
My dream-maker*
I had always wanted to be a writer. And so when Philip suggested I write something for his “blog”, Casa de Campo Living (www.casadecampoliving.com), there was no turning back. My first article was published on March 16th 2009, a simple piece that nowadays I would write in 20 minutes, but at the time took me the best part of a day.
After that I started to write more and more… and became increasingly frustrated at having to wait to see my articles published. To start with Philip, or one of his team, would have to prepare each piece, edit it – which I hated – and then publish when they were ready. In September 2009 I took over and announced myself as “editor of Casa de Campo Living”. The endeavour turned out to be so successful that Casa de Campo Living grew from a blog with approximately 500 visitors per month to the popular website it is today with more than 30,000 visitors per month.
Since then, Philip and I, have continued to grow our media company SILGON. In addition to web design services, SILGON now prints 4 print magazines; CasaLife, INMORTALES, TODO Casa de Campo and TODO La Romana – Bayahibe, 2 online magazines; Casa de Campo Living (www.casadecampoliving.com) and TODO (www.TODO.fm) as well as a weekly email newsletter “The Weekly” (click here to subscribe).
Seeing the company grow and working on all these projects together has been a dream come true. There is no doubt that Philip has been and will continue to be my dream-maker.
The proposal
I was starting to think it was never going to happen, and I certainly was not expecting it last Thursday the 7th of November. Having driven from Miami up to Orlando to celebrate our 5th anniversary at Disneyworld (my choice), we arrived to the hotel and headed straight out to dinner. “Aren’t you going to dress up?” Philip asked, “what for? We’re just going out for a quick bite, and then we need to go to bed early to be ready for the parks tomorrow,” was my reply. And so off we went.
Walking to the restaurant, we heard our song playing; “Can’t take my eyes off of you” by Frankie Valli, and Philip started dancing with me. Right there in the middle of the street with people walking past and staring at us, I just laughed and went along with it, “happy anniversary”, he told me.
A happy anniversary indeed!
During dinner, which was not fish and chips as I had requested, Philip insisted on ordering us cocktails – despite my protests that “we have to be up early for the rope drop* tomorrow”. And he did endless toasts; “to our future”, “to us”, “happy anniversary”, and when my drink ended and he tried to order a second, my answer was a very firm “no”. I had to get up early and there was no way I was drinking, I take going to Disneyworld very seriously! Philip continued with the toasts, even though I had just the tiniest drop of drink left, until somehow the topic of our engagement came up. I told him, “Philip I can’t go through another season of everyone asking us when we’re getting engaged, can we just get ‘faux-engaged’, and tell everyone the ring is pending?” “Yes” he said, lets do that.
After dinner, as it was already past my bedtime* I made a beeline for the hotel. Philip had other plans. I protested. But Philip is bigger than I am, so we ended up walking his way. I sulked. I continued to sulk until he said “we’re going to buy your faux-engagement ring”, at which I was still sulking, but at least that cheered me up a bit, so I went along with it. At the store we found a ridiculously large red sparkly minnie-mouse bow shaped ring, which we decided was perfect.
Strolling back to the hotel under a beautiful moonlit sky, we took a detour along a boardwalk around a lake. Philip stopped and took me into his arms and told me how much he loved me, “which is why…” he said as he went down on one knee, at which point I responded by laughing uncontrollably and telling him to stop being silly… And then I saw the ring – and it wasn’t the big silly minnie-mouse one, it was a real engagement ring, much more beautiful than I could possibly have imagined. Shocked and thrilled I eventually managed to say yes.
After that, I (begrudgingly) agreed to stay out a little longer to celebrate, before we continued our engagement vacation with 2 days of magic at Disneyworld!
The date
There is no date. Please be patient, it took us 5 years to get engaged, we will not be setting a date until next year.
Thank you to everyone for your love and best wishes, we really are both very happy.
*Authors notes
*dream-maker: Philip and I first heard this phrase used by our dearly departed friend Harry Moscatello who passed away in April this year. Harry, who also always called me “shutterbug”, referred to himself as his wife’s (Patricia) “dream-maker”, and it is a phrase I have used for Philip ever since.
*rope drop: At Disneyworld, rope drop is when the park first opens. Being at the park for rope drop means you can run to the most popular rides and get on them first before the long lines form. Highly recommendable.
*bedtime: Bedtime is 10:30pm, anyone who knows me is very familiar with the concept. If you are not familiar with the concept, I strongly recommend it – a regular (early) bedtime is very important for your good health!