This was the proposal from Greg’s point of view:

Permission
Selena made the commitment at the Festival when she said “yes” (or nodded while crying, which I took for a yes), but for me the commitment came six weeks ago when I went into Mr. Kang’s jewelry store to attain permission to marry his daughter, and advice on how to go about getting the ring.

The Ring
The process of finding the right ring was difficult, as Mr. Kang and I were both apprehensive of picking out something she wouldn’t like. I am told that couples typically walk past jewelry stores and the girl stops to say which ones she likes, and the guy only had to pay attention. In seven years we have NEVER done that, and so I had a lot of recon work to do.

It took weeks of trying to pry bits of information out of her, without giving away that I was ring-shopping. I finally had a breakthrough at a shopping center when I was able to pick up an engagement ring brochure in a situation that didn’t arouse suspicion. I played dumb, flipping through carelessly saying these were all ugly. Selena, refusing to let me be so cross, rebutted by showing me which were the nice rings. I immediately took the brochure to her dad, pointed out the rings she said were attractive, and together we determine which ring would be best for his little girl, for my future wife.

The Plan
I had thought about proposing a while ago, around Selena’s birthday, but I still had no idea what ring I was getting, so her birthday involved platters and Phantom, but no engagement.

I was thinking of trying to make her a nice dinner and propose privately, but I started monitoring, and realized she never comes home. First, her work has a happy hour or dinner or event every time someone is hired or leaves, and they have the highest turnover ever, so she’s always at something. If not, she is running in, grabbing her karate gear, and running out until after nine. Selena hates to eat after nine, so she would be pouting all the way up the proposal. Again, bad plan.

I didn’t really think the uber-embarrasing Delshakes plan was a very good one, but it was the one plan that was definitely “me”. No other guy could have proposed to her this way, it would be extremely unique and quite memorable if I could pull it off, but to do that, would take a lot. I had to work quickly.

Getting Things Moving – Her Side
First thing I did was write or call some of her closest friends (that I had contact info for) to try to see who was available to make it to Delaware on Saturday night. Most had important or impassible obligations, including unfortunately her dad and brother, but I was able to bring up long time friends Catherine, Tom and Tanya.

I knew I couldn’t let them be seen or it would give it all away, so I enlisted the help of the Lauren the Production Manager and Ananda the Stage Manager of the Delaware Shakespeare Festival to be able to intercept those friends when they got to the event, and hide them from Selena.

Getting Things Moving – My Side
For my part, I could keep most of my family in the dark. My dad and his wife knew already I was working on this, and they surprised me by making the trip up from Florida. My mom and sister I was able to convince just to come see the performance. My brother and his girlfriend as well as many of my good friends were all already working at the performance, and I just needed to get Amanda the Stage Manager to find reasons for them to be outside watching at that point in time.

The Stay
I worked with the fanciest hotel in Delaware, the Hotel DuPont to set up a package where for a price you get a night’s stay at the hotel, and tickets to the Festival and a picnic dinner with food and wine, etc. I knew it was a very nice package, but I told Selena I wanted to test it to be sure, so we would stay there Saturday night.

The Setup
I worked up this presentation for the audience where we would take a trip through time and go over “firsts” that happened at the Delaware Shakespeare Festival. Some were interesting like the first words spoken on the DSF stage, some were silly like the first woodland creature cameo. I had three people come up on stage with me to read these points while I talked in between them. The first Bob, was completely in the dark. The second Joe, was in the know and was holding the ring, the third was Selena.

The Proposal
After each of the readers read their bit, as I noticed Catherine, Tom and Tanya were out in the audience, as were my family, I told the crowd I wanted to add a new “first” and to do that I needed Selena. I called her over, and talked about the time we spent together, told her I loved her and reached into my pocket.

The Discovery
On the video, at the reach-in to the pocket you see a big shift. That is when Selena realizes what’s coming, as does the whole audience. They went from a Shakespeare crowd to a sit-com audience, everyone wooooooooing, and clapping and screaming. I got down on one knee and said “Selena Kang, will you marry me?”

The Answer
Well, it wasn’t yes. She actually didn’t say anything, but was crying terribly. With mascara running down both cheeks, she nodded multiple times and pulled me up to a kiss. Joe, who was still on stage, told the audience that was a “YES” and they gave a standing ovation, while Selena and I went backstage.

The Afterparty
Following the proposal, I ran Selena to a backstage area where the family and friends were instructed to come to. My dad brought in champagne, my sister cheered with exuberance that she was finally getting a sister, my mom cried, everyone spoke of where they were when it happened when Greg proposed.