Sometimes guys plan their proposal down to every detail and sometimes they just ‘wing it’ — sometimes it’s a little mix of both! Darrick’s proposal story to Joy was so ‘classic’ Darrick: it was filled with misdirection and fakery in every direction (in a good way)!

It all started when Darrick faked a phone call from his mother about how they had to attend an important family dinner get-together that could not be missed — he even acted disappointed that he had to cancel another ‘small group’ get-together that night! He booked reservations at Unionville (Pizza) Co..

Joy’s favourite dessert is a Longo’s fruit tart pie — essentially a really big fruit tart with a custard middle — so Darrick bought one. He wanted to put a box (with the engagement ring) on the top of the pie, but with all the fruit slices, there was no flat surface to affix anything to it. Time for some ingenuity: he went to a pizza shop and grabbed one of those pizza tripod stands (you know, the plastic thing that keeps the box from caving in and sticking to the pizza), stuck the tripod on top of the fruit tart and then got a box and double-sided taped it to the tripod.
Joy had said before, “I would marry you even if you proposed with a shoe string”, so Darrick literally took a shoe string and put it in the box (no special knot or anything!).

As they approached the restaurant, Darrick says, “Oh, I need to go poo. Just wait for me here and I’ll be back”. (Doesn’t that sound like typical Darrick?) He planned on faking going to the washroom so that he could return to the car to grab the fruit tart. Considering that this is all unfolding in the month of March, it’s still wintertime, so Joy was getting cold and wanted to wait inside somewhere. Eventually, he got her to stay warm inside an art gallery as he returned with the pie.

As he returns from the parking lot, he walks up the stairs, and sees Joy there sitting at the top of the steps. It was perfect, the sunset was shining down on her, glowing, and golden — the moment was just perfect. So as he makes his way up the stairs, he ‘fakes’ tripping and says, “Oh no!” and flings the cake box a little bit.
Worried that the cake had been squashed, Joy checks the cake box to make sure that everything is okay. She peaks inside and says, “Why does this cake have my name on it?”. She slowly opens the top and realizes that it says, “Will you marry me, Joy?” complete with a shoe string. Darrick had the ring in his pocket the whole time, so he takes it out, and she says, “Yes!”

As Darrick was toying with Joy’s phone for most of the day, her cell phone battery had drained completely — she couldn’t call her family or friends, text them messages, update her Twitter status, post to Facebook or anything! She ended up using Darrick’s phone instead, but iPhone’s auto-correct came to ruin the moment changing her message to say, “ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! I’m enraged @.@”

Long story short, she wasn’t enraged … she was engaged :)