Will you marry me, Fred?

Happy Leap Day everybody! And what an underrepresented day it is. St. Paddy’s day gets shamrocks and all of the green beer you can hold, Valentine’s day gets cards and flowers, but what about the poor Leap Day? Nada, zilch… it’s sad really. So consider this post my personal crusade against Leap Day apathy and discrimination! 

Ok, so I’m not really this crazed Leap Day fanatic, but I do think that it’s one of the cooler days that crops up throughout the year. So this year, since we’ve started this snazzy blog and everything, I thought I’d do a little bit of research into what it is, exactly, that makes this day so special. And where best to start, but at the very beginning. *Is anyone else humming that song from The Sound of Music right now? Well if you weren’t, I bet you are now!* Anyways, to answer the age old leap year question, we start with another question. How many days are there in a year? If you answered 365, you’d be right, sort of. It takes ~365.25 days for the earth to orbit the sun. Over the years this slight lag would cause the seasons to drift, and we’d all eventually end up celebrating Christmas in July. So, when we switched to the Julian calendar in 456 B.C.E. a day was inserted into the calendar every four years to correct the drift. That day is of course February 29^th. Now, back to our original question. If you answered 365.25 you’d also be incorrect, I know I know… I said 365.25 was right, and it is, almost. You see it takes, precisely 365.242374 days for the earth to orbit the sun. This difference is an extremely minute amount of time, about 11 minutes per year, but over time it adds up to a full day every 128 years. So to rectify the situation, the Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1582 which omitted the leap year three times for every 400 years. If that is confusing there is a simple formula to determine if it’s going to be a leap year. A leap year is any year whose date is exactly divisible by 4 except those which are divisible by 100 but not 400… see simple, or not. Anyways, this year is a leap year and that’s all you really need to worry about right?

So, we’ve established a brief history of how the leap year came about, so now let’s get to the fun stuff, folklore and legends! For example, children born in a leap year were considered unruly and difficult to raise. I have no idea if that’s true, but Jennifer Lopez’s twins were born on Leap Day so if anyone wants to ask her please get back to us! People born on Leap Day itself, called Leapers or Leaplings, are a rare breed indeed. There is only a 1 in 1,500 chance that a child will be born on February 29^th. Another famous Leapling was the fictional character Frederic who was apprenticed to a band of pirates until his 21^st birthday. When that day came, he was released from his bonds and returned to the mainland where he fell in love with a girl named Mabel. However, their love affair was cut short when Frederic realized that as a Leapling, he had not technically reached the age of 21. So, honest to a fault he returned to the pirates vowing to complete the final 63 years of his service leaving Mabel behind to wait for him faithfully. Now, I won’t tell you any more as I don’t want to ruin the ending. 

Ah, what’s this picture? Could it possibly be the best reason that leap years are famous? Ok, yeah, it’s probably the main one, proposals! That title's making a whole lot more sense now isn't it? You see, back in the day, women weren’t allowed to propose to their men and would be left, pining away for years. So in the 5^th century St. Bridget had had enough. She pled with St. Patrick to let women do the asking for a change. And after much haggling, he agreed that women could ask for their men’s hands in marriage only on leap years. Well it just so happened that it was a leap year and Bridget dropped to one knee and proposed. Flustered, Patrick refused, but to soften the blow he gave her a kiss, apparently he was better at dealing with snakes than with women. And from that day on, if a man refused a woman’s proposal he had to pay her with money, or a new gown and a kiss. It’s at this point in the story that I, A. want to start proposing to random men and then demanding money when they decline and B. wonder how the tradition ever took hold. I mean, seriously, there are these two people standing around and debating proposal rules and regulations, they come to an agreement and then what? It’s not like they were Kings or Presidents capable of bringing national regime changes. There was no MSN online to spread the word, and I can bet that a month or two later some woman was spurned by a man and left sputtering “But Bridget and Patrick said I could and now you owe me money, or a dress!” And I could only assume that her would-be groom would have answered back with “Bridget and Patrick who?” Although I have to admit this whole tradition forming thought process does have its appeals. I, Megan Reynolds, have just decided that March 1^st is a day when my fiancé should shower me with jewels. Think it will work? Yeah, I didn’t either, but a girl’s got to try right?

But I digress, over the years the tradition of a leap year marriage proposal dwindled in popularity until it was only represented on one day, February 29^th. It is reported that in the US marriage rates double on Leap Day, hey it’s an easy anniversary to remember. So, women of the world, are you tired of waiting around for your man to propose? Well quit waiting and start asking! And do we have some stunning choices for his mangagement ring. *Yes, mangagement is a real word, because I said so. So ladies, dare to be different and propose to your one true love today! And you should totally use bands like these that dare to be different as well.

The ring on the left is made of cobalt which is a great conversation starter for your hubby-to-be. It's also a symbolic metal, 5x harder than gold because it will be an everlasting testament to your love for him and the striking two tone color palate doesn't hurt either. And if that band just isn't funky enough for you, how about the band on the right? Made with Seranite, it's bold, stripey pattern is sure to turn heads. And let's be honest, he'll love telling all of his friends that his band is made of Seranite, it just sounds really cool. But don't limit yourself to just these options, check out UnionDiamond.com for even more great metal choices from classic Yellow Gold, to luxurious Platinum and everything in between. Seriously, the selection is fantastic with a ton of different styles as well including Comfort Fit, Engraved, and even some with Diamonds!  And then, once you've popped the question, you should run back here and share your story, pictures would be nice too! Also, if you’ve proposed or hey, men, if you’ve been proposed to on Leap Day we’d love to hear about it!