We met in August, I moved to Canada in January and had bought the ring by May… Wow, sounds crazy when you write it out!
I’ve been extremely fortunate with travelling and I met plenty of people along the way but I didn’t think it’d take me 30 countries before I met a Canadian in Croatia who’d steal my heart. Kait was the one and I realised that very early on.
I initially went into the jewellery store to see what options were available and how much money I’d need to start saving. However, a few ring displays later, I had found the pear diamond with a single halo that I was searching for and all of a sudden my credit card fell right out of my wallet and into the terminal!
Ring; check! Location… not so much.
While Banff is absolutely incredible and my initial idea was the old helicopter ride to some picturesque glacier, I figured that’s a little too Canuck for this Aussie. We’d been talking about travelling across Asia and ending up in Aus to visit my family, which would eventually lead to the perfect plan without Kait knowing. Fortunately the jeweller was able to hold it for me as long as I needed but the struggle in my mind at this stage quickly became; how do I hide the ring for 2 months in my backpack as we trek across the globe together. Somehow, this actually worked!
Along our travels, no perfect moment jumped out at me so I decided to hold off and do it the full Aussie way, right on Sydney Harbour. A few phone calls later and I’d organised a yacht with a few mates and soon we were on our way to Sydney. But wait… In classic Kait fashion, asking her to wear dressy clothes instead of cozy clothes for the cold windy harbour quickly turned into a shotgun of questions and I thought I was busted! A few white lies about formal dress dance clubs and you never know where the night may lead us eventually did the trick and we were Sydney bound.
We anchored the yacht and right on cue, the waves start rocking and turn the boat the opposite way to the harbour. As if I wasn’t nervous enough!
It eventually lines up and the perfect shot is in view. I ask Kait to come to the front of the boat to take the famous Titanic shot with Jack holding Rose around the waist; I get down on one knee AND… Once again, in classic Kait fashion, instead of standing like anyone else, she drops down to her knees because the waves barely started back up… So, I dropped to both knees and ended up practically sitting on the boat as she turned around. I quoted the last verse from ‘The Greatest Love Story’ by LANCO and a few minutes later after my mate asked if she was going to respond, she said yes!
The most nerve-racking part of it for me was the fear of dropping the ring in the water, which thankfully didn’t turn into a viral YouTube video!