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A teacher from Newry was certainly surprised when her boyfriend popped the question during a sunrise hike to the top of Slieve Donard last week, although the biggest surprise must have been that he had obviously taken lessons in organising and patience with the proposal two years in the making!
Majella Shields and her boyfriend Conor Bradley, also a teacher, are fond of the great outdoors and it was fitting that the proposal was made on Ulster's highest mountain.
They say marriage isn't a word - It's a sentence, but whether you agree with that or not, the proposal certainly was!
Bradley from Omagh had spent the previous 2 years hiding a secret message during their travels that when completed spelt out letter by letter the sentence 'Majella, will you marry me'.
Bradley recorded the individual letters on his mobile phone in destinations as varied as Sawel Mountain in the Sperrins, Doha, Salthill, Qatar, Errigal, Egypt, Achill Island, South Africa, Jordan and ultimately revealed the complete sentence on the top of Slieve Donard!
As he explains "I took a picture hiding a letter at key moments in our life and I created a video showing this and revealed it to her on the day." Thankfully Shields had helped Bradley to record educational YouTube videos since the pandemic so the technical end of things had been taken care off. The weather though looked like it wasn't going to play along but luckily what started as a wet and miserable trek culminated in a beautiful sunrise.
Bradley explains "It was a pretty miserable morning. Wind, fog and wet. I even lost a drone due to the wind but then it suddenly cleared to reveal an incredible sunrise!"
And of course the story wouldn't be complete without the addition of three more letters from Shields - YES!
