The Proposal

It happened on the 21st November 2019 towards the end of an amazing trip to Brazil. If you’ve read my blog post on Rio de Janeiro, you’ll know that Rio is a second home to me, with all my mum’s side of the family from there.

One of my all-time favourite places to visit in Rio is the iconic Sugar Loaf Mountain. I love the experience of going up in the cable car and the views from the top are absolutely spectacular. Whilst the weather that week was mostly cloudy and overcast, we were lucky enough to get some sunshine towards the end of our holiday, so we decided to take a trip to Sugar Loaf Mountain.

At the top of the mountain, we left my mum and my brother at a bar and went exploring off the beaten track, in a little jungle area which was quiet and away from the crowds. A recurring theme of our trip was looking out for monkeys for Jack to take photos of. So, there I was, looking up at the trees whilst Jack fumbled around in his bag for his ‘camera’, and when I turned back around, he was down on one knee! “Patricia, I have an important question for you… Will you marry me?” I gasped, squealed and said the easiest yes of my life!

We went back to my mum and brother who were waiting eagerly and it was perfect timing to catch the gorgeous sunset. We celebrated our engagement at the Skylab Restaurant in Copacabana, which had fantastic food and amazing views of the beach at night. The perfect end to a perfect day!

Since then, everyone has asked me “were you expecting it?” and the answer is no… It was a complete and utter surprise! I can’t believe that Jack, my mum and even my auntie went the whole trip without giving something away! The ring box was beautifully handmade by Jack himself – I now know what he was doing all those evenings locked away in the garage supposedly ‘tidying’. The engagement was so surreal and I still feel like the luckiest girl in the world… I can’t wait to marry my fiancé, and now begins the exciting task of planning our wedding!