I have always dreamt of someday marring an Englishman (or more specifically, Colin Firth).  So I’m sure that you could imagine my surprise when an English actor by the name of “Simon” proposed me to last week, in my hotel lobby.  (Note: Simon is not his real name but rather a “stage” name that I have carefully selected for him in order to help conceal his true identity.  My fiancé especially needs a stage name because he is a kind of a big deal actor.  And by big deal, I mean that he may have once actually starred in a movie with Colin Firth!)  By association alone, I have decided that being engaged to Simon is almost the same as being engaged to Colin Firth.  Almost.

Even though I always hoped I would marry an Englishman, I never really believed that it would actually happen for me.  I mean it just always seemed like one of those dreams that was too good to be true.

In a million years, I never could have imagined that I would meet my Englishman, actor, fiancé in San Juan, Puerto Rico, while vacationing with my dad!  But people do always say that you find love when you are least expecting to.

I mean there I was in my hotel lobby, innocently playing a game of Spider Solitaire on my iPhone4, when a man with a red beard started talking to me.

“Hello. Where are you from?” He asked me.

“San Francisco,” I replied.  “Where are you from?”

“London,” he said.  “I love San Francisco!”

“And I love London!” I said.

“Let’s get married!” He suggested.  “Shall we?”

“Done!” I said.

And just like that, I was engaged to the red-bearded Englishman in my hotel lobby.  Of course at that moment, I wanted to shout out to the World that I was engaged; that I, Dean, had just been proposed to.  After all, this had been a moment I had been waiting for my entire life!  (Note: When Simon asked me to marry him, I wasn’t aware of his fame yet.  I agreed to marry Simon based solely on his proposal alone; not for his stardom.)  It was only after our proposal that I learned that Simon was in Puerto Rico filming a movie.  (Well, that’s what he told me anyway.  And I wasn’t sure if I believed him quite yet.)

“Is there anyone else who I might know starring in this movie with you?”  I asked my new fiancé.

“Perhaps you might know Elijah?”  He said.

“As in Elijah Wood?” I asked.

“Yes.” He confirmed.

Thinking at this point that this guy had to have been pulling my leg or at least on some sort of serious medication, I continued to “play along” with his little story and told Simon that Elijah was way too young for me to date but that I would love to meet him anyway…just for shits and giggles, of course.

My future husband then asked me if i wanted to grab a drink with him.  And, being the whack-job that he appeared to be, I said no.  I told him that I was very busy and that I couldn’t join him because I had lots of very important things to do; like getting ready for dinner (but truthfully needing to text all my friends about what had just happened).

“Well then,” He said.  “How about we meet later on tonight for drinks instead?  We’ll all be drinking at the hotel bar.”

“Not sure.”  I replied.  “Will Elijah be joining us?”

“I would assume so.” My fiancé said.

“Lovely.”  I said in my best English accent.  (I tend to speak in English accents when those around me are also speaking in them.)  “Then of course I’ll join you…and Elijah.  I’ll see you later then!”

As I stood up to leave, Simon walked toward me and planted a huge kiss on each of my cheeks.

“I’ll see you later tonight, beautiful.”   He said. And he walked away.

I did next what any normal girl in my shoes would do…and started texting everyone I knew in my cell phone about what had just happened.  Still not knowing if the red-bearded man was for real or not, I quickly organized a team of friends to start doing research on my new fiancé.  I needed to find out once and for all if Simon was for real.  And more importantly, I needed to know if I would be meeting Elijah Wood later on that night for drinks.

It only took a few short minutes to discover that Simon had in fact been telling me the truth.  (All I can say is, thank god for IMDb.)  Simon was indeed an actor from London, filming a movie in Puerto Rico, with Elijah Wood.  I couldn’t believe it.  I was engaged to someone famous and I had a date to meet Elijah for drinks later that night….no big deal!

Fast-forward a few hours, and there I was sitting in the hotel bar with Simon, Elijah (a.k.a. “Eli”), and a whole bunch of other English actors.  I was in English-accent-speaking heaven and it was amazing!  Simon, the fascinating character that he is, introduced me to all of his actor friends, as his wife.  No one seemed the least bit surprised by his comment and I certainly wasn’t about to correct him.  After all, Simon was famous and he had in fact proposed to earlier that day.  None of this was a lie.

As you can imagine, it was nearly impossible for me to keep my cool that night.  I mean it’s not every day that Dean gets to hang out with a bunch of actors, and ones with English accents, no less.  My nerves were completely unsettled.  And although I did my best to help calm them with some Bacardi and Diet Coke, nothing seemed to work.  I mean there I was, the future wife of Simon, sitting next to Eli like it was completely normal.

Well, there was nothing normal about this night…including when I told Eli that I had nice ankles.  Talking about ones ankles is never something that anyone ever plans on talking about, right?  I’m not exactly sure what happened.  It just kind of slipped out when Eli asked me how Simon and I had met.  Instead of me simply saying, “he proposed to me in the hotel lobby earlier today”, like any normal person would.  I instead replied, “Simon noticed my ankles. I have really nice ankles.”

I, of course, had to take a picture of my ankles that night to document my “winning” moment with Eli.  I mean if you’re going to do something memorable, you might as well take a picture to capture the moment.

Throughout my week in Puerto Rico, every time I saw Eli, he would appropriately refer to me as “Ankles”.  It was awesome.  We had clearly become friends, Eli and me.  And Simon and I started to get to know each other too…as husband and wife.

I had an amazing week with Simon in Puerto Rico.  We talked a ton, we drank a lot, we held hands, and we gazed at sharks together in the ocean.  We were caught in a rainstorm together as we swung on a hammock and shared our first kiss.  He showed me various clips from his movies on You Tube and I shared with him that I usually wash, brush, and blow dry my hair straight and wear make-up.  We were like two peas in a pod, me and Simon.  We had lots (or not a single thing) in common.  And on our last full day together, he took me on a very romantic date to Old San Juan where we ate lunch, shopped, and talked to the locals.  It was the most fun I had had on a date in a long time.  And when I left to go to the airport the next day, Simon called me from his movie trailer, in between shooting scenes, just to say good-bye.

And so this is the story of how Simon and I came to be.  So don’t go acting all surprised when I announce that I’m moving to London or you see me on the Red Carpet at the Oscars in LA some day.  I’ll be the girl wearing a silk organza dress by JCrew, jewelry from Banana Republic, and shoes made by Nina.

And maybe, just maybe, you’ll catch a glimpse of me on the TV, sitting next to Simon’s once-former co-star, Colin Firth.

No. Big. Deal.