This is a very sweet story one of our customers sent us about his engagement!
HISTORY
Anyway, I met Sara a little over 18 months ago in a singles ministry group at church. Technically, our first public date started with gift shopping at Toys R Us followed by dinner. Our first real date was dinner at my place but I didn't think a memorable proposal could be pulled off in my house. Sara asked me about 'the future' back in Feb and I knew what she was getting at but since I was already working on a plan, I tried to play it off by talking about our plans later that week. I was going for total surprise on the proposal and money was tight so I had to work on selling some toys too. I was going to go to the diamond district in Philadelphia but started browsing online just to get a feel for what my diamond parameters were. I made my rounds at the jewelry stores and quickly confirmed my suspicion of that being about my last option. I ran my thoughts by two of her friends and they told me they thought Sara wanted a princess cut. Uh oh. After educating them on diamonds, they were convinced I knew something about diamonds and gave me a green light to go for the round.
So... a little better than a month ago, I came on here looking for diamond advice. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted and narrowed it down to 2 I saw on Whiteflash. Whiteflash, and Sheerah in particular, was simply wonderful to work with. The diamond was a 1.117 hearts and arrows and it looked spectacular when I got it. Cut is so important and I wanted that thing to shine like the North star. Details of that can be found in the diamond forum here:
http://www.pricescope.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=115014
PREP
Since our first public date started at Toys R Us, I decided I needed to come up with a Toys R Us plan. After lots of thinking and dead ends, I discovered there was a Barbie doll wearing a wedding dress and carrying a bouquet with a giant plastic engagement ring off to the side. Above the ring, the packaging said "Ring for you". I bought the doll and the cashier asked me if I needed a gift receipt. I told her I didn't; it was for me to play with. Smartly, she didn't acknowledge I said anything. Since I wanted this to be a surprise, I didn't ask Sara what she wanted or what ring size she was. I decided I'd get a loose diamond and let her pick out the ring afterwards. That was going to work well with my Barbie plan. I removed the massive hunk of plastic diamond from Barbie's pink ring and drilled a small hole in the center of the band to set the bottom of my diamond in. I then taped Sara's diamond in place on Barbie's ring, folding over a piece of tape so I didn't gunk up the rock. I put the ring back into Barbie's packaging. I didn't think that would suffice so I went on my computer and after trying all 137 fonts in Microsoft Word, found a nice font to type "Sara - " in and I printed it in Barbie pink with a gray background. I cut that out and taped it inside the Barbie box so it looked like "Sara - ring for you".
PLAN
Other than her two friends that I cornered for diamond and ring advice, my lips were sealed. My mother knew I was at least looking at diamonds. She knew nothing more but anything less and she would have probably started camping out in my front yard. A little help from Whitepages.com and I had her dad's phone number in Florida (had to do it via phone since I'm in Maryland.) I waited until the night before to call her father because I didn't want details getting leaked out. Naturally, I got an answering machine. What in the world do you say on an answering machine without giving too much away? I haven't seen him in a year so the call would surely set off some alarms. Suffice it to say that after I thought about the message I left, I had to call back and leave another message saying there wasn't an emergency... please don't call Sara, etc. By the grace of God, her father answered this time and I explained why I was calling and why I was calling back 5 seconds later. We talked about the weather and stuff and he gave me his blessing.
Sara's pretty smart so I knew there was no way I was going to get her into Toys R Us without being suspicious. I had to be sneaky like a fox in a barnyard. Sara loves to run so after lots of thought, I decided to convince Sara I was going to take up running. Dick's Sporting Goods has running shoes and *just so happens* to be right next to Toys R Us. Thankfully, there wasn't a knitting store next to Toys R Us!!! 
I set it up so we would meet at Dick's after work. I had Barbie and my camera with me. I was planning on getting to Toys R Us early to let the manager know what I was up to but I was running late. I just told the customer service guy why I was walking in with a Barbie and he liked the idea (of the proposal, not of me walking in with a Barbie doll). I called Sara to see where she was and she was just around the corner. 
I realized I left my camera in the car so I RAN out and got that while on the phone with Sara. I told her I was in Toys R Us shopping for a gift for my nephew and a gift for my neighbor's child. I casually asked Sara if she just wanted to meet me in there and then head over to Dick's. Had I given her any more time to think about it, she may have been suspicious but I hoped that if I carried it off as a last minute thing, she would have no time to give it even a second thought. I went back in, knowing Sara was seconds away from Dick's and I went straight to the Barbie aisle. I saw a woman shopping nearby with her son and told her I was proposing within the minute and asked her if she would take a picture. She obliged and I put Barbie on the shelf and headed for the entrance to meet Sara. I picked up the closest item to me - a box of Lincoln Logs -- to appear that I had been actually shopping. I didn't make it even 2 more steps when Sara rounded the corner. I told her I had Caleb's present so we just needed something for Sophia, my neighbor's daughter. Right behind me was the Barbie aisle so we naturally went right there. I pointed out a few dolls to Sara and then casually pointed to the Barbie bride doll. Sara looked at it and innocently said "Hey, that's MY name!". It didn't seem to hit her at first so I took the doll and got down on one knee. I'm pretty sure she got the hint then and I saw the flash of my camera come from behind me.
THE ANSWER
Silence. Disbelief. Shock. But I think the first comprehensible words were either 'of course' or 'yes'. Both work for me. My 'photographer' took a few more pictures for us and I thanked her. I suspect she was equally as shocked as Sara. At least my last second photographer's little boy got to see one way to pull it off for his future plans. As we walked out to the parking lot, I told Sara not to tilt the box too much as the diamond wasn't securely fastened. That's when she realized the actual diamond was on Barbie's pink ring. The next batch of incomprehensible words followed. Being a runner, she was probably a little disappointed when I broke the news to her that I had no plans of shopping for running shoes. I'm pretty sure she got over that when we walked into the jewelry store though. So many choices but we tried the diamond in most of the rings at least once and she found a ring she seemed to really like. They didn't have it in her size so we have to wait a few weeks. The diamond was sent to the manufacturer and will be set by them. So... Sara is now without a ring and without a diamond... But we have PICTURES!
Treefrog
spanspan
