Engagement Story, Cambridge, MA

Ashti and Uttam’s Engagement Story from Nicole Chan Photography

There are couples that just work. It’s hard to put into words, but they just do. They make fun of each other. They drive each other completely nuts. They absolutely would not be able to live without each other. Most of all, they make each other a better person. Ashti and Uttam met when Ashti was running a dance practice at Tufts (FYI – this girl has MOVES). Technology took over when she moved to India after graduation and they kept in close contact via Google Chat and Skype. Ashti mentioned that Uttam was the first things she saw in the morning and the last face she saw at night.

A story of their proposal, in her words:

“October 16, 2012 came. We had planned to celebrate our 2 year anniversary a day early because my grandmother was leaving to return to India on the 17th and trying to plan an anniversary dinner after going to the airport in the afternoon was proving to be too difficult. I was at work chatting on Gchat with Uttam, he kept asking me to leave work early, and I was increasingly getting annoyed with him for incessantly asking. I was able to leave 2 hours early and drove home to get ready for our date. It takes me 20 minutes to get from my office to my house, and as soon as I reached my home I received a text message from Uttam asking me if I was ready… yah right! 30 minutes later, after I replied with an annoyed no? I hear the doorbell ring, he was already at the house to pick me up- making me even more annoyed because I knew all I would be hearing from that point on, C’mon babe! HURRY UP!? He was supposed to have made dinner reservations at Top of the Hub, but told me on the drive downtown that he had a meeting with a client before dinner. I wanted to sucker punch him so badly! No wonder why he was rushing me so much! He tried to calm me down by saying we could go take some pictures on the Mass Ave bridge for our anniversary. I need a new profile picture?, completely odd for him to say but ok. We parked the car on the MIT side of the bridge and headed over.

We found a spot on the bridge and had some passersby take pictures with our camera, mind you I was in a dress, it was the middle of October and with the wind on the bridge was freezing! Uttam made some odd comment about how the skyline wasn’t looking so great in the area we were so he wanted to keep walking– the skyline doesn’t change 30 feet further but I went with it.We had another passerby take a picture and then he started to hug me and kiss my forehead, just like the night we first kissed. All of a sudden he steps away from me and the next thing I know, I hear 2 girls who were running by, screaming. THEN I hear Uttam calling my name and I notice he’s on one knee with a huge smile on his face and holding the most beautiful diamond ring out in front of him. He says he asked me to marry him, but I couldn’t process anything that was happening, I just started crying and was in shock. He took my hand and slid the ring on my finger. As we were hugging and reveling in what just happened he tells me to look on the other side of the bridge and wave, there are 2 photographers there taking pictures of us and the proposal ; apparently the first words I spoke were “OH MY GOD!! YOU GOT NICOLE CHAN!” I couldn’t believe how much thought he put into all the details! Those pictures are exactly what I wanted and he really made the moment picture perfect! We called our families while Uttam was driving to the restaurant, thankfully not the client meeting! Then after dinner we drove home and my parents greeted us with hugs and kisses-my father said welcome to the family!”