We got engaged in in the garden of the Palais Royal in Paris on December 31, 2005, 2:30 p.m. local time, to be precise.

Feel free to ask us for the long version of the story, including our delicious (?) seafood dinner the following night. For now, here are some pictures that we took at the bench right after Polina wiped off her tears and Patrick wiped the dirt off his pants:

Here’s a picture of unsuspecting Polina in the garden a couple of minutes before; suprisingly, Patrick’s hands were not shaking too much to take the picture:

And finally, the ring:

You’ll find a whole bunch more pictures in our gallery.