A Kansas City couple is learning to laugh about their botched marriage proposal after the diamond ring intended for the proposal fell into a pond during the big moment.
After four years of dating, Seth Dixon knew he wanted to ask his girlfriend Ruth Salas to be his wife.
On Saturday, he brought her to a picturesque location at a local park to pop the question when the unimaginable happened.
He got down on one knee, began to profess his love for her and opened the ring box, only to watch in horror as the diamond ring tumbled out, bounce a couple times and fall through a narrow crack in the wooden bridge.
“We freaked out,” Salas told local newspaper The Kansas City Star. “It ping-ponged from one plank to another. You could hear a little plop.”
Salas didn’t even get a chance to formally accept the proposal before the chaos.
Dixon and their friend Maddie Villareal, who filmed the moment, jumped into the water and looked for the ring until the sun went down, but came up empty.
“There was a lot of algae and sticks. The water was super dirty from the ducks. It was pretty gross, but I was like, ‘We gotta find the ring! I guess I’ll do it for you guys,’” said Villareal.
The couple even found someone with a metal detector to help them find the ring in the mud, but to no avail.
The next day, when their friends had heard about their engagement and the missing ring, they felt compelled to help.
“All of us were like, ‘Well let’s go out and look for it then!’ So we got a huge group of people to look for it,” said friend and photographer Staci Dabney.
After about an hour of looking, no one was able to find the ring but everyone came out of the situation with good memories. Friends have set up a crowdfunding page to help Seth and Ruth get a new ring.
“They didn’t expect that at all. They were in tears that we even went out to try,” said Dabney.
Despite the ups and downs of their short engagement, the couple are so excited to get married that they’ve even moved the date of their wedding to next month.
“It’s been a roller coaster of emotions to be honest,” said Salas. “Honestly, I’m happy and excited that we’re finally engaged. Just sad I don’t have a ring to show for it.”
“It completely still blows our mind this happened to us but instead of wallowing about it we’ve decided to laugh it off,” she said. “The ring is a materialistic thing and doesn’t define our relationship or future marriage. We know that God has everything under control.”
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