This really was a big question
Helen saw the words and said ‘isn’t that nice?’ Then she saw the name and it clicked that it was her name
A MAN proposed to his partner by creating a huge ‘Will You Marry Me?’ message out of rocks on a beach.
When Steven Chell and Helen Richardson started dating in July 2020, one of the places they went to for walks was Hawthorn Dene, in County Durham.
And this was where Steven decided to surprise Helen by asking her to marry him.
The 36-year-old, from Ryhope, Sunderland, used rocks from the beach to spell out the words “Helen will you marry me?”.
The letters were around 6ft long and he created the message over two weeks.
He visited the site, while Helen was at work, to plan and create the big question, collecting and laying out the rocks at a suitable spot, making sure they would not be washed away by the tide.
He also had to make sure the letters were big enough to read from the top of a cliff, where the couple would be walking.
And he continually checked noone had moved the rocks.
Every time he returned home from the beach, he cleaned up all the sand so Helen would not find out about his plan.
He then asked Helen, 34, managing director of a firm, to join him for a stroll in February this year – and she was stunned to see the proposal. Steven, who works in social media management, said: “I invited Helen out for a walk and luckily she said she wanted to go. It would have been tricky if she had other plans. But she was up for it and the weather was lovely.
“We walked our usual route towards the beach and came to a part where we could see the sand.
“Helen saw the words and said ‘isn’t that nice?’ Then she saw the name and it clicked that it was her name. She looked around and questioned if it was for someone else.
“She stopped walking. I knew she had realised it was for her. I turned around, took the ring out and got down on one knee. It took me ages to ask
her, I had a lump in my throat. She said yes.”
Steven said it was an emotional moment for both of them. After he proposed, the couple finished their walk and, still stunned, Helen asked him how he had gone about creating the message.
He told the Sunday Sun they started dating the year the pandemic broke out, when people were not going into cinemas or out for meals. They often went for walks at Hawthorn Dene and Steven felt it was the best place to propose.
Around a week after the proposal, a photographer saw the message on the beach and shared it on Instagram. She will be Steven and Helen’s wedding photographer when they tie the knot in April, 2024.