You’ve got mail! When Zach Tobe realized that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with girlfriend Ariel Waks, he heavily considered the best way to do it: ideally something personal, something meaningful, and definitely something surprising.
And so when he decided to give Waks a “special delivery” via her favorite subscription service company, it felt like a dream realized. “I knew Ariel was obsessed with getting her subscription boxes,” he tells The Knot. “And her favorite one is FabFitFun.”
Tobe reached out to the quarterly service to see if they could help facilitate a package of some kind. “Initially, he just asked if we could send any old box we had lying around,” a rep explains. “Our customer service rep who received the inquiry thought it would be fun to see if we could send them a more custom box for their special day. She connected with our in-house creative team and suggested designing a box that featured the girlfriend’s favorite things: French bulldogs and pasta.”
(Credit: FabFitFun)
The resulting exterior was an adorable teal-colored box with an illustration of two French bulldogs slurping on a single strand of pasta a la Lady and the Tramp, with a tiny heart (meatball) in between. “The decoration of the box itself was what she loved the most about it,” Tobe says.
Then, he stuffed the box with a few of Waks’ favorite things, ranging from silly to practical items. He included a Frenchie sleep mask, a sloth stuffed animal, a rain jacket, underwear, a book about sloths, a sleep mist, and a travel remedy from Saje Wellness.
“It took me about a month to come up with the items and to go around Toronto to find them,” he says of his girlfriend, also the proud owner of a French bulldog. The inclusion of the underwear was an inside joke between the couple, and like Kristen Bell, the future bride also has a mild obsession with sloths. Three years ago during a trip to New York, the couple saw a sloth stuffed animal, which he promised to one day purchase. He tossed in the topical book for fun, and included the Saje items since she’s a wellness fanatic.
(Credit: FabFitFun)
When the fully customized box arrived in the mail, Waks initially thought nothing of the coincidental box exterior, though she began to suspect something was up once she saw the contents of the box itself. Once she went through the items, that’s when it slowly registered that this was not a typical unboxing experience.
At the way bottom of the box was a simple sign that read: “Will you marry me?” A video from the moment shows both parties crying tears of happiness. “We’ve been planning our wedding a little bit and we think we are doing it at the end of next summer,” the couple tells us. When it comes to the favors, they’re now considering little boxes for their guests as a potential nod to their engagement story.
And the moral of the story? Always check your mail.
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