Kunal & Karishma

Finding the right place and time to propose is not the easiest thing to do. I know for me, I wanted it to be very thoughtful and of course surprising.

June 5, 2016 – Karishma had been in Las Vegas attending the JCK Tradeshow and I planned on flying in on this day to meet with her. At this point in our relationship, she was anticipating “that special moment” but in my mind, it wasn’t my preference to pop the question. She basically gave up any notion of a formal proposal. This was all apart of the master plan that was already in place…

Meanwhile, what I was truly doing was setting the stage for a fake wedding reception. I went as far as creating a fake wedding reception invitation that was from my high school friend. I customized every detail on this one card from the time and date, to the actual venue of where my grand plan would unfold. I constantly reminded Karishma of this event that we could NOT miss! The card read: Mark & Jessica’s Wedding Reception, June 12, 2016 at the Ritz Carlton - Half Moon Bay, CA. 7 PM. Karishma totally bought it!

June 12, 2016 – On the day of, I thought I had everything under control except for my own nerves. As much as everything was going according to plan, I felt like something was going to go wrong. As we drove to the venue, and the closer we got, I felt so many emotions at one time. At one point, I completely forgot about the fake wedding reception, but when we reached the Ritz Carlton, it was Showtime! Walking to the Ocean Terrace felt like the longest walk, obviously there wasn’t going to be a wedding reception but that didn’t matter. I told Karishma that we will be waiting for my good friends from high school to show up and we will walk in together with them. This was my way of buying time! She was constantly asking me over and over, “Where are your friends?” This allowed me to improvise fake phone calls with my imaginary friends. As we were killing time, we sat at the bar near the location where I wanted to propose. Again, I had to kill time, so we took selfies… Literally over 100 selfies!

As the anticipation grew and my eyes were on the location, I was ready to move towards the proposal spot, however, I miscalculated some of the logistics… Heels! She was wearing high heels and in order to get to the location, she would have to walk up a hill. Getting her to the proposal spot was a difficult task, she was already tired from walking in her heels and all she wanted to do was sit at the bar and wait for my high school friends to arrive. So I had to improvise yet again! I told her I needed to run to the restroom.

Meanwhile, as Karishma sat at the bar, I ran into the Ritz Carlton souvenir shop where my sister and brother in-law were waiting with a camera. At this point, we were fortunate to find two random girls that found out what we were trying to accomplish and agreed to help out. They became our secret camera team!

As I gathered myself, I went back out and had another drink. Several minutes passed and the two girls approached us, asking if we were “Here for the wedding reception.” The girls were instructed to guide Karishma and I to the correct proposal location where we would be taking pictures together as a group. We spoke for a bit and as they started to leave, Karishma was standing at the exact location, at the exact spot where I finally had the honor to bend down on one knee, look her in the eyes and propose to her… Karishma said yes and the rest is a part of history.