He played with the decor to give his plan a bit of humor inspired from a meme
Mikhail Kevin Cruz first connected with Cheyenne Echo Chua via Instagram stories. She posted something that piqued his interest, and from there a friendship blossomed into romance. ‘“I remember praying and asking God if I decide to pursue her, would God be with me?” Noy says. They went from friends to a couple, all during this pandemic, so why not engaged and married too?
“She already knows that I want to marry her so the moment I received the blessing from her family to marry her, my cousins and I started planning the proposal.” True to Noy’s personality, he playfully switched the balloons prepared from ‘Will you marry me’ to ‘You will marry me’ before he actually knelt down on one knee. Some may call it confidence, others can call it ‘claiming it’. What we know for sure is Chey still gave Noy her sweet yes.
To keep his beloved from picking up on his plans, he arranged for his proposal to be on a day that was meant to celebrate him. Despite the bad weather, which almost caused Noy to postpone his proposal, things still went according to plan when they arrived at the venue.
Below, Noy recounts their love story and how he planned his unique proposal that (sort of) didn’t pop the question.
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How did you become a couple?
It started when I saw her Instagram Story of a 3D-rendered kiosk, it was then when we started chatting. We became close friends and from friendship, it developed into something more. I remember praying and asking God if I decide to pursue her, would God be with me? At first the answer was wait, so even though I wanted to court her, I was waiting for God to say ‘Go’. And the moment God said go, I had second thoughts. He he. But God assured me He will be with me. So on that day, we had a zoom call, and I asked her if I could court her and she answered yes. We enjoyed the courting phase and then we became a couple.
What made you feel that it was the perfect time to pop the question?
She already knows that I want to marry her so the moment I received the blessing from her family to marry her, my cousins and I started planning the proposal.
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How did you come up with the proposal plan? What was the inspiration for it?
We did something simple. First we secured the ring, then I asked for her family’s blessing. Then we looked for a place and date and my cousin suggested inflatable ‘Will you marry me’ balloons, which I played with and came up with ‘You will marry me’ instead, which is inspired by a meme.
How were you able to turn the plan into reality? Was it difficult during these times?
My cousins were excited. One of them suggested that we do it at our Graduate School graduation (my cousin and I both studied Urban and Regional Planning) so that Chey won’t have any hint of our plan. The plan was for my family and I to fetch Chey at her house–after I fetch her, my cousin will fetch her family and I will make a stopover so that they can arrive at the proposal venue first.
At the venue, Cafe Thalia, was our friend and my other cousins who were preparing for us to arrive. We did encounter a few problems beyond our control–first was the weather, there was heavy rains in the morning, which was kind of scary, I almost canceled the event. But while I was praying, God reminded me that the rain will stop when I need it to stop, and guess what? It did stop when we fetched Chey. Another problem was we actually got vaccinated the day before the proposal, but thankfully Chey felt better the moment we arrived at the venue. It’s actually us planning and God giving us His favor the whole time.
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Tell us how it happened!
When I heard that her family was already at the venue, we left the gasoline station (or our stopover to buy us time). When we arrived, everything was set. We entered the restaurant and it was all just as planned, everyone was upstairs and the lights are turned off. When we walked up, she was surprised and confused whether the surprise was for me or her, up until I showed her the ring and asked will she marry me. It took a while–but she said yes! We all celebrated with dinner that night, just intimate fun with our families.
