Anyone who’s proposed knows it can be hard to find the perfect moment to do it. So why not give it a few test runs until the moment feels right?
That’s the approach Edi Okoro adopted when he proposed to his girlfriend, Cally Read, in a series of covertly shot photos in which she does not notice the engagement ring hidden just out of sight.
The photos show Okoro holding the ring behind Read’s back while she’s brushing her teeth, sleeping, peering through binoculars and lounging at the beach.
The 30-year-old man from Hertfordshire, U.K., says he came up with the idea after Read nearly caught him staring at the ring one day at their house. He embraced that close call and decided to photograph himself with the ring in all sorts of daring scenarios until he found the perfect moment — or he got caught in the act.
“She had no idea what I was doing with these photos,” he wrote in a Facebook post on Aug. 26.
Okoro explained that he’s bad at making plans and even worse at concealing them from his partner, so he decided to shoot several secret proposals-on-the-go because that fit with his “spontaneous style.”
Okoro posted nearly two dozen photos and two videos of his dry-run proposals on Facebook.
One video shows him holding up the ring box while he’s standing in the bedroom doorway and she’s in bed. Okoro explains in the caption that she can’t see well without her glasses, so he took advantage of it for one of his stunts.
“Cal, what am I holding in my hand? What’s this?” Okoro asks.
“A helmet,” she says.
“What have I in my hand?” Okoro asks again.
“I’m guessing it’s your phone because you keep testing me out,” she says.
The post has been shared more than 63,000 times on Facebook.
Okoro posted a follow-up photo on Aug. 31 announcing that he’d finally popped the question — and she said yes.
“We did end up getting engaged, and no I didn’t get caught,” Okoro wrote.
The photo shows the two of them smiling together, and the engagement ring on Read’s finger.
Okoro didn’t share details of his successful proposal, although he plans to do so in the near future.
“How I did it is a story for another time,” he wrote. “Stay tuned!”