My proposal was out of this world
A SPACE fanatic boldly goes where no romantic has gone before with this gesture – as he sends his girlfriend’s engagement ring into orbit.
Liam Bove, 31, and Becky Dixon, 28, are a match made in heaven as they share a love of the cosmos.
So he had a blast working with company Sent Into Space for over a year to launch the perfect proposal.
Liam said: “Becky is out of this world to me so I hoped the proposal would reflect that.
“We always say to each other
‘I love you to the far edges of the universe and back’ so I wanted to get the ring as close to that as I could.”
Footage shows the ring in its open box as it climbs 100,000ft above Earth after launching in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, on January 10.
The sparkler floats above the atmosphere with the planet in the background, its diamond twinkling like a star in the Sun’s rays.
It then descends with the help of a parachute, at between 3mph and 5mph, to touch down safely in a field outside Ramsey, Cambridgeshire.
Liam, who met Becky 15 years ago in the sea cadets, took the primary teacher for a romantic riverside stroll on February 29 to pop the question.
Gobsmacked
He showed her the astonishing footage as he got the ring out.
Liam, a retail systems analyst from Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, said: “I showed her the video and at first she was asking what was happening.
“She wasn’t sure if I was doing a bungee jump. Then she asked why the world was getting smaller. But I had to keep quiet.
“She was absolutely overwhelmed and gobsmacked. Delighted to say the least.”
The launch, which piggybacked on a scheduled data research journey, cost £2,500 and took two hours and five minutes.
Liam did not reveal how much the Tiffany ring, bought in Harrods, cost.
But it had full commercial and public liability insurance – and Sent Into Space has a 100 per cent recovery record on launches.
Liam said: “I’m really grateful Sent Into Space could help me fulfil my dream. Some of our friends and family thought I had done the proposal through CGI and didn’t realise it had gone up into space.
“When they did find that out, they were amazed as well.”