I'm [29M] ready to propose to my girlfriend [27F] but the ring won't be here on time. How do I handle this situation?

Before I start, due to our intended wedding timeline, this weekend is the last weekend I can propose without having to shift our plans. This is because of the Catholic six-month rule where you have to do six months of premarriage counseling.

I've been trying since December to buy an engagement ring but everything has gone wrong, from my bank losing track of most of my money for three months to the jeweler cancelling my order without telling me. I'm finally at the point where the "2 days to your doorstep" ring I ordered a few weeks ago was shipped (using overnight shipping Wednesday), but it's stuck at a FedEx facility a few states away that's currently shut down due to winter weather according to their website.

She's been expecting me to propose any second since we decided on December being a good timeframe to start our engagement. The delay since then has really stressed her out despite my reassurances that I intend to marry her and nothing is wrong with us. If she asks I've just been telling her it's a logistics problem to not totally ruin the proposal with a ton of details.

We're long distance and it really stresses me out driving to her every weekend empty-handed. I have to drive to her again today and I don't know if I can handle the stress and guilt of having a fun weekend again without proposing. I don't want to totally ruin the surprise of proposal, but I feel like I have to at least tell her that now our plans are ruined.

Here are my only ideas:

• We tell the church we're intending on being married, but we're not engaged yet. I don't know how that will fly.
• I buy a second ring today (if that's even possible) and use that to propose and return it?
• I pretend to forget my baggage for this trip and tell her I'll be there tomorrow, giving FedEx one more day to get the package here (since it's an ""overnight"" package allegedly...)

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tl;dr: I need to propose ASAP to meet our timeline, and the ring I ordered is stuck in shipping limbo. How should I approach this?

Submitted February 19, 2021 at 06:14AM by uhhhhhh3424 https://ift.tt/3ughSdm