Stephanie & Wissam from Bellevue, WA

Hatching the Plan From Wissam…
The whole plan started on December 14th when I decided to propose during our forthcoming trip to Paris. I asked my parents for their blessing and we all went to E.E. Robbins the next day to choose a ring.

Courtney and Brant from the Bellevue store were extremely patient and helpful. I’d told them all about my plan to propose on the Eiffel Tower and that I needed the ring by December 21st in time for our trip. A tight turn around! It was no problem for them and they made sure that time constraints weren’t going to prevent such a great proposal. They gave me some hints for how to stealthily determine Stephanie’s ring size and with that they had the ring ready 4 days later.

The Proposal From Stephanie…
I was completely surprised when Wissam proposed on the Eiffel Tower (just look at my reaction in the photos)!

Our trip to the famous monument on January 3rd seemed like any other vacation site-seeing adventure. Wissam had pre-arranged tickets for the elevator which delivered us to the upper-most level of the tower. However, as soon as we got there, Wissam insisted that we head down to the first level. This didn’t make any sense to me since the view from the top is better, but he persisted for about 5 minutes until I agreed to walk down the 20+ flights of stairs with him.

As it turned out, we needed to be on the first level in order to read the proposal banner on the Champs de Mars below.

Once on the first level, I proceeded to play tour guide since I’d lived in Paris in college. Little did I know he was focused elsewhere!

Continuing the tour, Wissam pointed in front of us and asked, “So what’s that there?” I thought he was pointing to the building at the other end of the Champs de Mars and I paused to try and remember the name. “No, what’s THAT?” he ventured again, this time pointing more strongly down to the grass below us. That’s when all of a sudden I noticed a white banner unfurling on the green below with large print that read “TazTaz will you marry me?” (TazTaz is one of his nicknames for me).

Speechless at first, I said yes of course and gave him a huge hug. Wissam’s brother was also with us on the Eiffel Tower and was an invaluable partner in crime (he texted the guys with the banner to signal the green light). Even more, he was there to photograph the life-changing moments. Thank you, Samer! Honestly,I was so surprised that I completely forgot about the ring portion of a proposal when Wissam bent down on one knee and presented the beautiful 9-diamond band. It was a magical moment and I bent down right away to join him and accept the ring.

As per Lebanese tradition, I’ll wear the engagement band on the right-hand ring finger until I switch it over to the left at the wedding. The idea is that you move the ring to the left upon marriage since it is closer to the heart!