The stunning Sunshine Coast is a special getaway spot for Brian Owens and Jenn McDonald, but when the Vancouver retail salesman decided it was the ideal setting for him to pop the question last February he needed a little help with logistics.
“I figured there’s got to be a planner, an event planner who could help me to propose there. I just kind of Googled it,” says Brian, 36, explaining how he found Coastal Weddings & Events to help him with his elaborate plan. He says as soon as he talked with owner Melissa and planner Kori he knew they were the right ones to help him.
They were excited to be a part of it and they were amazing. For me the fact they really wanted to contribute and really wanted to make it what I wanted it to be was not only comforting, it was reassuring because no one else knew the details.
Brian met Jenn at an engagement party for friends and says it was an instant connection: “It didn’t take too long to fall in love and then in Christmas 2012, our first Christmas together, she got me a gift of a weekend away on the Sunshine Coast.”
Their romantic weekend in Sechelt was so relaxing and beautiful they decided to limit presents for Christmas 2013 so they could go away for a weekend again. Brian talked with the Coastal Wedding & Events team to brainstorm a romantic place to propose and one, in particular, struck him as ideal.
“A gazebo at Gibson’s Landing. It was the perfect idea because we had actually gone there on one of our dates on the Sunshine Coast,” says Brian, adding that he had kept a photo of that very spot as the screensaver on his computer since that weekend getaway in 2012.
Melissa, who has worked as an events planner for more than a decade, says Brian’s event was particularly fun to plan.
“We had not done a proposal before! We would love to do more,” she enthuses. “We love planning all the details so everything runs smoothly and after finding the perfect location our challenges were that February on the Sunshine Coast is freezing and it gets dark so early in winter.”
Brian connected with Melissa and Kori by phone and email, working out all the details. Reservations were made at a beautiful Sunshine Coast B&B, plans put into place to improve the ambience of the gazebo on the pier, and a chef hired to prepare a post-proposal meal for the couple back at their B&B.
Months earlier, for Jenn’s birthday, Brian had given her a wine fridge stocked with four bottles of wine and two bottles of champagne. Each bottle had a note attached to it designating it for a special occasion.
“They were for a romantic dinner, another romantic dinner, a weekend away, our anniversary, New Year’s Eve, and a very special occasion,” explains Brian. “The very special occasion one – everyone figured out pretty quickly that was a proposal.”
Brian had to figure out how to get that special occasion bottle to the Sunshine Coast without Jenn noticing. Fortunately he was able to get it to a Sunshine Coast vendor who was at a Lower Mainland wedding show and could transport it over to Melissa and her team.
“They made everything happen. I came to Coastal Weddings & Events with the base idea, but they helped me figure out exactly how to do it and they facilitated everything. All I really had to do was show up at the right place at the right time,” says Brian.
As for the unsuspecting fiancée-to-be, she was hoping that the weekend on the Sunshine Coast would prove to be the night for the special occasion bottle.
“Once we got to the B&B I was hunting for this bottle of champagne, but I couldn’t find it and I was disappointed. I guessed I was getting ahead of myself and was convinced I had it totally wrong,” says Jenn, 30, who works for EA Sports as a Production Coordinator for the sports label. She confesses she was being a bit sulky when they drove over to Gibson’s. “We even bickered in car about parking just five minutes before.”
Night had fallen and they saw lights down at the foot of the pier, but Jenn didn’t think much of it because they had never been there at night.
“As we got closer I was like, Brian, I think we’re walking in on something. And he said, well you are – and the lights came on brighter, a violinist started playing, and a photographer started taking pictures.”
Melissa says she and her team felt honoured to be involved in such a special moment.
“The best part was Jenn’s reaction, for sure, when she realized what was happening. Such a mix of surprise, wonder, and joy,” says Melissa.
The couple walked to the gazebo at the end of the pier, which the Coastal Events team had strung with fairy lights and staged with lanterns, a cloth-covered table, flowers, a bench with a warm blanket ready, chocolate covered strawberries – and of course the special occasion bottle and glasses.
“He takes my hands and he’s facing me and he’s shaking a little bit as he launches into his speech. I think it’s the first time he’s ever used my full name. Then he gets down on one knee with the ring box and opens it up and asks me if I would marry him.
“There was what felt like a really long pause – I like to think I was thinking of something clever to say – but I was just crying and managed to choke out yes. I think I said it three or four times and he put ring on my finger – we kissed, all that mushy stuff.”
They danced out under the night sky by the edge of the water in the gazebo lit by flickering lights.
“I wanted romantic music and the violinist played, ‘Can’t help falling in love’ while we danced,” remembers Brian. “It was so beautiful on the violin; very sweet and romantic.”
As they sat wrapped in the warm blanket and toasted their engagement, Brian told Jenn they weren’t going to a local bistro for dinner but would return to their cottage at the B&B to enjoy a meal prepared by a private chef.
“At the B&B there were candles, flowers, rose petals, cookies with our names on them – the whole nine yards,” says Jenn. “The owners of the B&B were in on it and the guests in the other cottage had known about it.”
Most of all she appreciated that her fiancé went all out to propose to her because Brian was married before.
“Especially for someone who it’s a second marriage you don’t necessarily expect them to be that excited. He took it to heart that this is my first marriage.”
Brian says the proposal was everything he wanted it to be:
I really wanted something very special for her. It’s a once in a lifetime event, and I wanted it to be something she would love telling stories about. I wanted to have her completely blown away, for her to have her princess moment and feel like she was the most important person in the world. I think it worked.
The happy couple plans to wed in Pitt Meadows in the summer of 2015, but definitely plan to return to the Sunshine Coast.
“We want to make it a regular thing to go to the Sunshine Coast. I mean, it’s gorgeous and it’s unbelievably relaxing to take two nights, sit in hot tub, and look out over the water,” says Brian. “We have kind of a connection with it now. We are hoping we can go back every year.”