How We Met: We met in one of the most unlikely places, but I guess it’s becoming more common now… Twitter! The weirdest part was that we had no mutual followers and yet Jes still managed to find me. She doesn’t believe it, but I keep saying it’s fate because we are made for each other… from the music we both listen to, to the fact we both love basketball (which is quite rare in England). We spoke every day for 6 months on the phone and Skype before we met in person. I already knew before we met face-to-face that I wanted to marry her, and I even told her – but she didn’t believe me! I wanted to go to Paris for New Year’s with her (this is still before we had met), and she told me that she would only go with her husband. I told her that it’s going to be me so we should go, but she paid no attention. Little did she know that nearly 3-1/2 years later we would be engaged!
how they asked: I had the idea of proposing on a gondola in the canals of Venice since I was 18, but I just hadn’t found the right woman to do it for yet. Fast forward a couple of years and I met the woman of my dreams! EVERYTHING just seemed to fit with us: every single thing kept proving to me that this was meant to be and that she is my soulmate.
I bought Jes a new dress and a special bottle of champagne to take with us to celebrate afterwards. I only became nervous as I stepped into the gondola, and I couldn’t really focus properly on enjoying the first half of the gondola ride. So much so that I completely missed the cue from our photographer, Serena, to let me know that it was time! She just nodded at me and looked at me dead in the eyes to tell me that now is the moment!
I looked at Jes in her eyes and began to tell her how the three years we have been together have been the best three years of my life and that I couldn’t ever imagine being with anyone else. I had a whole speech written out (which of course I forgot), and I told her that I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with her and that I had a question to ask her. I reached into my blazer pocket to pull out the ring. When my hand reached inside my blazer, that’s when she realised what was about to happen!
I got on one knee in the gondola, opened the box, and asked her if she would marry me! By this point she had already started crying and hadn’t even looked at the ring yet. I had to ask her if the tears meant it was a ‘yes’ because she still hadn’t answered me. Suffice it to say, it was a yes! I put the ring on her finger (it fit!) and sat back down next to my new fiancée. She couldn’t stop staring at the ring and I couldn’t stop staring at her, I had never seen her so happy in all the time I’d been with her so I knew I must have done something right! The rest of the gondola ride was just a blur. I remember another couple in a gondola congratulated us, and next thing I knew we’re stepping off the gondola to take some more pictures on solid ground.
Photographer: Serena Genovese for Flytographer