My (now) fiancé and I were going out for just over 5 years. We met in our first year at university and were both still studying until end of 2009. When I started work this year I immediately started making plans to (finally!) ask her to marry me. She was kept under the impression that, with me just started working, it will still take a year or two before I can ask her hand in marriage.

So, with the FIFA World Cup as a perfect excuse, I “arranged” for a group of friends to visit Durban one weekend in order to watch one of the games. Everything was arranged, fake accommodation, fake airline tickets, fake world cup tickets, fake airport parking tickets, everything!

But I was actually planning to take her, without her knowing, to Mauritius. Explaining why we would be flying Air Mauritius, and why we needed passports, was quite tricky! But the FIFA world cup gave me another excuse. You see, because Air Mauritius is also part of the BA group (!), BA arranged for Air Mauritius to make stop-overs at King Shaka airport on all flights from OR Tambo to Mauritius (!), because of the enormous increase in demand for local flights. And because Air Mauritius only has an international terminal, protocol dictates (!) that all passangers need valid passports!

So, I actually managed to get her unknowingly on the Air Mauritius flight, after she told one of the check-in personnel that we are not actually going to Mauritus but are part of the “stop-over group”. We got few strange looks but everyone managed to not say anything after I had to secretly wink at them!

On board the flight I decided that it is time to let her know the truth. I opened my bag and gave her the brochure of the Mauritius hotel we’re going to stay at and told her that we might be going a bit further than Natal. She was completely taken by surprise, at first not believing me and then crying for a good hour out of shock and (hopefully) excitement!

So, now she probably figured out that there might be a big question coming her way, but she also thought that I was maybe just giving her a nice holiday…

I arranged for a private dinner on the beach, with musicians playing for us in the distance. It was perfect. I took her between meals to a dock 20 meters into the ocean, under a small lapa, went on my knee and asked her to spend the rest of her life with me…

And she said yes!

This article was posted by Celebration.co.za - South Africa Wedding Guide.