How we met
Miki and I met 5 years ago on a cruise ship filled with 1200 entrepreneurs sailing to the Bahamas. The event was called Summit Series and Miki and I immediately connected over our shared passion for social entrepreneurship. Miki was there for her period-proof underwear line THINX and I was there for my video gift company Tribute.
We became fast friends and after discovering that we were both interested in going to Burning Man for the first time, we joined forces and headed out to the desert as friends. After two days together, it became abundantly clear that Miki and I were meant for something greater and we got “Burning Man married” (not a real marriage) to celebrate our new love. Fun(ny) note: Reverend Funk Pocket married us. Quite possibly the coolest reverend with handlebar mustache ever. We’ve been together ever since (5 years).
how they asked
As I started to think about what I wanted to do for the “real” proposal, I knew I wanted our community involved and began to realize that it was going to be rather elaborate. Since I knew that this would take a lot of phone calls and sneaking around, I told Miki and her twin sister Radha that we were doing a surprise “family weekend” that Radha’s bf Eli and I were going to plan…this made it possible for me to make secret phone calls before the big day…little did she know I was planning the proposal the whole time. Pro tip: Never tell the twin sister (or best friend) that you’re going to do a surprise proposal. Make her equally surprised. Double whammy! And insurance that no beans will be spilled!
A month before the big day, I sent an email to 30 of our closest friends in NYC. The email simply said… “You are invited to a very special adventure. Show up at this address at 9am on 8/20. You must be wearing white. You must love what you are wearing.” That’s it.
On the big day, 30 of our closest friends met at our apt in Brooklyn and saw a big black bus waiting for them. The bus proceeded to shuttle everyone up to a beautiful house called “Shakespeare on the Hudson.” A friend relayed my message to them, “at 3pm…I need all of you lined up in the woods. We’ll be there.”
Miki, Radha, Eli and I took off from Brooklyn that morning and headed out a nice day at Storm King sculpture garden. When we packed up to leave, Eli and I told them that we have a special surprise planned and that they needed to wear something nicer. We pulled out two white dresses that we had packed for them. It was ON.
We had about a 1 hr drive to the house and I timed it so that when we were 10 minutes away, I pulled out two blindfolds and told them that we were going to do 10 minute guided gratitude meditation that I’ll play over the car speakers. They put on the blindfolds and headed into their meditation…I actually think Miki fell asleep.
Miki: I literally pulled an all-nighter the night before and flew back from Vancouver on the red eye so yes, I most def fell asleep, esp since I had no idea what was about to go down. If I’d known, I would have at least showered! At this moment, with the blindfolds still on them, we pulled up to the house and I saw this…
I told the girls to leave the blindfolds on, then left the car to run down the hill to take my place at the bottom of the tunnel of friends. Next, Eli takes Radha out first and removes her blindfold…
Then, our friend Betty Kay takes Miki out, walks her to the top of the “friend tunnel” and stops.
Our friend Paul starts playing a melody on his guitar and Betty Kaye removes her blindfold. All of our friends throw white rose petals in the air.
As she starts to walk down, I drop to a knee. Then she reaches me.
Then we took a moment to thank our people for all they’ve contributed to our partnership. We call the ring the “tuning fork” – it has a big space in the middle and two black diamonds facing inwards on either side.
While I knew that I wanted to do something with our community, I also knew that I wanted to have some alone time for Miki and I. We were on the Hudson…so why not use it. I found a private boat captain and arranged for him to pick us up at the private dock at the base of the house. His dingy took us out to their sailboat, a very weird but awesome commercial sailboat.
While we were out on the boat, our friends (led by our incredible friend Jeffrey) were cooking us dinner over a fire back at the house. We returned to an amazing feast laid out on a single table outside…
After this, our friends set up some speakers in the woods, built two bonfires, put some lights onto the trees and we danced the night away to our friend Victorien djing a 9 HOUR SET until 8am in the morning! Truly one of the best days of our lives. Literally the BEST. Still in awe of everything that Andrew did to prepare and how our friends rallied to make it the most memorable experience of our lives.