The Perfect Proposal

My name is Mia Carter, and this year, the man of my dreams and I will be tying the knot.

Andy’s proposal to me was just like a fairytale, and was one of the most extraordinary nights of my life.

It was the night before our second anniversary, and Andy had told me that he wanted to take me out for a surprise evening before we left for the Hunter Valley the next day. I was waiting at home for him after work, when he sent me a text asking me to check the letterbox. Now this was weird.

In the letterbox I found a beautiful card, saying we were going on an adventure, and to walk to the ferry wharf.

At the moment I arrived, Andy sent me a text that said, “Follow the balloons…”. Sure enough, to my left I could see gorgeous white helium balloons tied to every tree along the waterside. It was pitch black at night and the balloons seemed to glow in the dark. After a few minutes of following the balloons, I stopped and thought, “I wonder how many balloons there are?”, and that’s when my heart skipped a beat. There were literally hundreds of balloons, tied to every tree around the entire bay!

Realising I had a fair distance to cover, I started to pick up the pace, silently thanking Andy for telling me to wear flat shoes (he seriously thought of everything!).

Once I reached the end of the balloons, I received a text at that exact moment, saying “Follow the candles…”. I later learned that Andy had organised a ‘support crew’ (his sister Rebecca and his friend John) to spy on me and alert Andy when I got to each checkpoint.

Candles were lining a staircase up a cliff, and then there were candles lighting a labyrinthine path through a park, which included bridges, staircases and winding footpaths. I kept laughing out loud, so impressed with the effort of the treasure hunt.

Next I arrived in a secluded park. In the distance I could see hundreds more candles, and as I got closer, I could see the candles spelled out a message:

MARRY

ME

MIA

There was a huge question mark in candles, in the centre of which was a beautiful picnic complete with Bollinger champagne, Adriano Zumbo cakes, divine chocolate-covered strawberries and cheese and crackers.

And then, my gorgeous fiancé appeared, knelt before me and asked me to marry him.

Of course I said yes!

Thinking of everything, Andy put a temporary ring on my finger (as I’ve always wanted to design my ring together), but said that he also had something permanent for me. Andy pulled a gorgeous padlock out of his pocket, which he’d engraved with our initials and the date of his proposal. There is a romantic wall in the park covered with padlocks, which borrows from the Italian tradition of lovers locking their love onto a wall for all of time. We chose a section that was totally unoccupied, and locked our padlock onto our space on the wall.

The rest of the night we spent enjoying the midnight picnic by the water, while our ‘support crew’ cleaned up all the candles and balloons (see, I told you Andy had thought of everything!).

It was the most utterly romantic night of my life.

Now we can’t wait to start planning to spend the rest of our lives together!

Above: Mia’s candlelit proposal message.

How did your fiance propose to you? Did you know he was going to propose?