Free falling… in love! Silicon Valley resident Matthew Cardona successfully executed a rather adventurous proposal last week when he asked his girlfriend, Erin Breyfogle, to marry him as she was parachuting from the sky.
In an exclusive interview with The Knot, Breyfogle shares what was going through her mind while her fiance proposed from the gorgeous landscape down below. “I had no idea that this was all already planned beforehand and for the proposal,” Breyfogle tells The Knot.
Originally, Breyfogle thought the excursion in Monterey Bay, California, was solely to celebrate her boyfriend’s 25th birthday — but he was scheming something bigger. “He did so well with tricking me and making me believe I was planning his birthday!” she exclaims. “I was so surprised. I had no idea!”
Leading up to this proposal, Cardona quietly teamed up with local skydiving professionals and secretly gathered family members and friends to greet them at the proposal location. The most difficult part of the plan, however, was keeping it a secret until Breyfogle, 23, was up in the air.
“He had to have his brother and brother’s wife be in charge of talking to all the friends and family so that I would never know he was planning it,” she says. When Breyfogle saw her boyfriend’s proposal message written in huge letters on the earth, every second of secrecy paid off!
“When I first started reading it ‘Will you marry me…’ I slowly thought ‘I wonder if this is for me,’” she recalls to The Knot. “And then I completed reading the whole phrase, ‘Will you marry me, Erin?’ Once I read my name at the end, I realized what was happening. Seconds later, I landed and he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him!”
Surrounded by their loved ones, Cardona dropped to one knee as Breyfogle detached from her skydiving instructor. Still in shock from the dive and her boyfriend’s proposal, she wept and said “yes” before sharing their first kiss as a newly-engaged couple.
“I was so surprised yet so happy at the same time!” the future bride continues. “As soon as I said ‘yes!’ to him, I heard a loud crowd cheering and turned to look at the crowd. It was all of my family and his family and all of my closest friends… I was astonished and shocked. I was crying tears of joy because of how much planning that was done beforehand.”
The future groom, meanwhile, was pleased with his master plan. “He has said how happy he was that he surprised me and how happy he was to see my face light up so bright with everything that happened,” Breyfogle concludes to The Knot. “He says it went even better than he planned or imagined! It was amazing!”
(Photo courtesy of Erin Breyfogle)
The couple, who have been together eight years, first started dating while attending rival high schools. Then, they both attended California Polytechnic University together before entering the same career as teachers.
Watch the proposal above!
