Magic - something that casts a spell! Thats exactly what happened.

I am a 22 years old graduate, who was always pretty skeptical of arranged marriage till an unexpected 'arranged marriage' proposal turned to out to be love at first sight. My family had sent over my photo to his family on a saturday. The next day, the family, together with the prospective groom - 'my husband now' were at my place! And I was not even aware of it all! We were

introduced and exchanged email IDs. We ended up chatting away till early hours and I definitely was smitten.

After two days, on the tuesday, he called andwe met at Fullerton Hotel for dinner. The ambience was simply breathtaking. As we were approaching desserts, I see my plate with a bouquet of 3 roses with a card stating, "A rose for each day I have known you and may i have the honour to give you roses till death do us part?" And just as I look at the bouquet carefully, it had a ring, yes a ring with a diamond around the stalk of the 3 roses. I was dumbfounded. I mean, yes, I liked him, we just met and things seemed great but then he told me of the whole arranged marriage plan and how both families have consented and waiting for my consent. I love him. Who else can cast such a spell on me, with such a magical proposal?

As i always believe, "SURPRISE" is the element of success. I did it twice!!!

On 10th October 2007, Cindy was on a planned trip with her 2 best friends (which were my undercovers too) to Taiwan. According to the confirmation, they should arrived HuaLian by the noon, and checked in the respective hostel. I planned my flight to arrive 1 night earlier and took a mid-night train to Hua Lian, without knowing it reached by 3 o'clock in the morning... rest at the

station until day break, make my way to hostel that they booked. After explaining my plan to the lady boss, she happily agreed to help and let me check in first without leaving any trace of my arrival.

The 1st surprise of this event come, when the lady boss lead them to the room, I was standing right there, say "Hello~" She couldn't believe it, with the shocking face that did not recover in more than 20 second... I told her that I was here to join their trip because I was bored of working =)

Later we went off to a short tour led by the local people, reached a lake that we can ride on this paddle boat to the middle of the lake. It was there it came the 2nd surprise, she was happily taking photo of the surrounding, i quietly pull out the little red box, and pop the question "Would you marry me?" She was in shock again, with a little doubt of cry wolf (I used to joke a lot on this topic), 5 seconds passed, with a little tear and smile, she said "Yes!" Well... there were some clumsy moment along the way, but I managed to put the ring into her finger.

Part 1 happened on the bed in Aug 2008. He just turned to me and said "We should shop for a ring." I replied "ok"... The next day we went looking around and got the ring!! That's it.... I always though I will never get a proper proposal from him cause I am already wearing the ring.... for nearly 5 months. Nothing happen. I gave up the idea something is ever going to happen.

On 7th Feb 2009, I came home from a late night outing with my girlfriends. He was sitting in the living room watching tv like any

other day. I didn't suspect a single thing and went to the bedroom to get a change. When I opened the bedroom door, there were rose petals everywhere... There were roses on the bed and a message in a bottle, which wrote :"Will you marry me?"

This is one of the happiest day of my life. My husband is not romantic person at all. For him to put this up must have taken him lots of time and effort. Later I found out from my parents and sister that he was locked out. He didn't have the keys to my place. Nobody was at home when he was there. He waited for an hour before my parents were back to open the door for him. He is simply adorable.

It was called Mission Brussels. When I learnt last year that Gracia (now my fiancee) had secured a place in her university's journalism trip to Europe, it set me thinking. We had been dating for five years and I felt that we were both ready to take our relationship to the next level after her graduation.

I first rounded up my closest buddies to help brainstorm on how I could propose. Many chipped in with ideas and I was grateful that my best friend, Wee Teck, had even decided to fly with me.

On the first day of Wee Teck and I arrived in Brussels, the capital of Belgium, on a Friday afternoon. The plan was to do a recce of the Grand Place. Home to the city's town hall, the grand market square dates as far back to the 15th century. Since both Gracia and I are history buffs, I thought this choice of location would be ideal for proposal. We sat at the square to observe the human traffic and began talking to locals to see what is the perfect time to propose.

Two days after, I woke up feeling excited and all ready to spend the day picking up proposal props. We found a small store with what I thought had the most beautiful flowers in the world. They were big and the colours were fascinating. Next, I thought that good flowers must be accompanied by good chocolates. We finally decided on a heart-shaped chocolate from Leonidas which best represents my intentions of giving my heart to her. With just a few hours to go, I make a call to Derrick, my other trusty helper who was part of Gracia's journalism group, to ensure that everything is going as planned. The team had just touched down. Apparently, her professor had even told her that they would be heading to the Grand Place after dinner to witness a torch procession that happens on every first Sunday of the month!

I felt both nervous but excited as the hour drew closer. After a few failed attempts, we finally found two teenage girls who sportingly agreed to help to pass an iPod to Gracia. However, she was terrified and wondered why two strangers would give her an iPod out of the blue. She refused to listen to the iPod despite promptings from her friends and professor. Meanwhile, Wee Teck and I were hiding at the other end of the square, unaware of what was going on over at her side. Wee Teck then made a move to prepare the petals, candles and music. As she listened to the iPod, Wee Teck led her to the doors of the Grand Place where I would be waiting. With the bouquet of roses in my hand and the ring, I knelt down and asked: " Would you like to spend the rest of your life with me?" She said yes without hesitation and I got up to give her a big hug to applause and cheers from her friends and even curious strangers. It was such a great feeling - joy mixed with relief.

We have been together for 9 years since school days and this year we decided to celebrate it in a hotel room. When I entered the room, to my surprise, the whole carpet floor was covered with red roses petals all the way to the bathroom, bath tub and at the far end of the room was what caught my attention. It was a bear hugging a big red heart and sitting beside a huge heart shape card board. Rose petals were pasted on the card board with some wordings which I was trying to read. I think my flu has really affected my thoughts so much that I read the words as "Happy me please?" (I was really

puzzle at that time why he would write such words). Well, you could imaging how anxious he was already when my reaction was not at all what he has expected. His joy level has been reduced into worries and asked "what's wrong baby? Don't you want to marry me?"

Oh my god, it suddenly strikes me that those words were MARRY ME PLEASE! This man has spent the whole night before trying to piece the rose petals together to form the words and this morning, he has checked in early to put up the entire decor. I was really touched and quietly ashamed of myself for not being able to make out what the writings were. My immediate question was - "where's my ring?" He told me it was there with the bear and flowers but I have to look for it myself. So as a true born Singapore girl crazy about diamonds, I immediately dashed for the bear and flowers, looking through every roses but it was not there. I took the bear, turned it upside down, look under the cardboard, around the bed but still couldn't find it. It took me nearly 20 minutes before he decided to let me know where it was.

As he sits me down at the arm chair, he picked up the bear, and within the furs of the bear, there was a ring tied to the neck! He untied the ring, went down on his knee with the ring and told me" I'm like this bear longing for someone to accept my heart of love. Would you accept this bear, my red heart and marry me?" "Of course I would!" He put on the ring for me and it fits perfectly. That was a sweaty but romantically sweet moment for me. I have sweated for the reward on my finger!