When Jerett, Michael, and I (Phillip) were on exchange in Sydney, Australia, Jerett asked me if I wanted to meet the friends he'd already met. Not knowing many people, I obviously agreed. He brought Sarah and we all met up at a chocolate bar. The waitress came over and flirted with me (literally has only happened twice in my entire life) and gave me a bowl of free samples. Sarah later admitted that this, combined with my just having been to New Zealand for 6 months, made her think I was the coolest person ever. Well, joke's on her, but she found out the truth too late 😉. We started hanging out and I asked if she wanted to get brunch at sunrise one day. Our first date was on Coogee Beach watching the sunrise at a cafe overlooking the sea.

While I may have joked that she was getting a ring pop on more than one occasion, I knew I really wanted to make our proposal something special. When I'd asked her if she had any requests for that day, she simply said, "Somewhere beautiful in nature, a complete surprise, and not in front of anyone." So y'know, easy requirements. When we decided in 2023 to go to Switzerland, I knew it had to be there. To be honest, the part I was most nervous about was where to hide the ring. She'd sometimes rummage through my bag to get toothpaste/etc. when we traveled, so I really didn't know where was safe. Then one night I was flossing and thought, y'know, this floss box is like the perfect size for a ring. Once I removed the floss, it nestled perfectly. This hiding spot was made all the better because Sarah has never flossed once in her life. Alright, hiding place secured. Whenever I actually thought about where I'd want to propose, no place seemed perfect. If it was a beautiful place, how could I be sure it wouldn't have any people? If there weren't any people (viewpoint at sunrise), it'd be so weird that she'd know something was up. I sat down multiple times to plan where I'd propose and I just couldn't find anywhere I was happy with. However, what better plan than no plan? I made a backup plan at the end of the trip if I hadn't done it yet, and figured I'd just do it when it felt right. Little did I know how well it'd work out. Our first two days in Switzerland were quite rainy, so that night we were talking to our Airbnb host about where we could go to get some sun. He recommended training down to Lake Lugano on the Swiss/Italian border. He promised sun, a beautiful lake, and a nice train ride and I was sold. Sarah sat down at 11pm the night before and planned out the day and bought train tickets and as she told me the plan I thought, wow, this might be perfect. On the train that morning I looked up the lake on Google Maps and I saw that next to the restaurant we'd have lunch in there was this historic customs house with benches overlooking the lake. Since we were on the first boat of the day, I was pretty sure there wouldn't be anyone over there. Everything just went too perfect. No one got off at the stop we did, so we had the whole restaurant and customs house to ourselves for an hour and a half. She asked me to take her photo next to that bench while she looked out over the water and when she turned back to see if I'd taken the photo, I was down on one knee. I've honestly never seen her so shocked, her first words were "is this a prank?". She was truly so elated and crying and it was just a stunning place and I was SO happy. We ended up having lunch in an empty restaurant overlooking the lake, it was like I'd rented the whole place out for us. Watching her just smiling all day and looking at her hand just made my heart melt. I couldn't have not planned the day any better if I'd tried.