A romantic surprised the love of his life by secretly travelling to New York to propose to her under the world’s largest Christmas tree.
Rikki Horn, 27, planned a transatlantic trip to coincide with his partner Melanie Walker’s pre-planned girls’ shopping holiday to New York City.
The father-of-one secretly booked a separate trip by himself to spend just one night in the city to ask the big question.
He only told his partner’s friend Cheryl Brown of his plans and plotted with her using Snapchat so that Melanie was kept in the dark.
Rikki even boldly stayed in the same hotel as Melanie, 27, and her pal Cheryl Brown– Hotel Edison, Times Square, without letting on to his partner about his plan.
Cheryl and Melanie were on their way to the Rockefeller Center on December when Rikki tapped his partner on the shoulder, hugged her and stumbled as he got down on one knee and popped the question.
Rikki says that he will never forget the look on Melanie’s face when he turned up out of the blue.
He said: “It was so funny because Melanie has passwords to my phone and everything else, so Cheryl and I had to use Snapchat to communicate because of that, otherwise it would spoil the surprise.”
“She was in extreme shock. Definitely a sight I will never forget especially when she said ‘yes’.”
The romantic gesture wowed shoppers passing-by but most importantly gave Melanie and her doting fiance a moment to cherish for the rest of their lives.
After Rikki’s cunning scheme he had to return home as he did not want to spoil the girls’ shopping trip.
He added: “The fact that I was only in New York for 24 hours just ruined me even though it was well worth it.
“I stopped over in Ireland on the way back and booked somewhere to sleep for a couple of hours. I had to wait for my next plane to come back to Scotland.”
The couple have started looking at various venues for their wedding which will be in 2019.
