Jesse Seads popped the question Saturday during a plane ride, with the question “Will You Marry Me Justine?” spelled out in pumpkins in a farmer’s field below.
Justine Aichelberger said ‘Yes,” and the couple stayed on the plane as the flight continued on to the Comox Valley for a weekend getaway.
Jesse’s father, Douglas, said his 31-year-old son set up the proposal by telling Justine, 25, a few weeks ago that he had won a flight in a contest at work.
“He was designing a way to present this flight and what could be done, and came up with the pumpkin idea,” Douglas said.
The two had been going out for five years.
Jesse, Douglas and 95-year-old neighbour Jim Squire went to work at Gobind Farms in Saanichton, courtesy of Satnam Gobind, rolling pumpkin after pumpkin into place to spell out Jesse’s message.
“They allowed us to use the middle section of all the pumpkins to create the lettering,” Douglas said. “We reassembled it like an Etch A Sketch.”
The men used about 640 pumpkins to complete their task.
The plot began with Jesse picking Justine up from her regular stint of volunteer work and “whisking her away” in a Rolls Royce, Douglas said. The pair got into the plane at the Victoria Flying Club.
“It was all quite a lovely conspiracy.”
What she thought was a simple flying tour quickly turned into something else, he said.
The pilot showed his passengers some sights at first then flew over the farm.
“She was admiring the pumpkin fields and suddenly it hit her,” Douglas said
He said pumpkins are bound to trigger great memories for Justine in the future.
“The charming part is every year when she sees pumpkins in October she’ll remember that moment.”
On top of that, the couple met at a Halloween party, he said.
