This Beach Proposal Had Everything—Except One Shiny, Forgotten Detail

Picture this: Your boyfriend is in the middle of proposing when he reaches for the ring and comes back (eek!) empty-handed. The struggle was real for Tad and Annie. See what happened next.

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Tad Ro, now a chief digital officer, asked Annie Lee to marry him during a weekend getaway to the central California coast. "He gravitates to the unexpected," says Annie, a product manager for the same startup, describing Tad's surprise proposal on a white-sand beach. But on that day, Tad shocked even himself when he reached into his jacket pocket and came up empty-handed. "That's when he realized that he had left the ring in the car," Annie says. "He told me he was nervous that day and thought he had everything ready, which he did, but he forgot one shiny detail."

As Tad raced back to the car, where he'd left it, Annie waited nervously for what seemed like the longest 10 minutes ever. ("Not that there was an audience, but knowing that something big was about to happen!" she says.) Naturally, she took the time to text her girlfriends that Tad was proposing. "Of course, they were all puzzled why I was texting in the middle of a proposal," she adds. "That's when I explained to them about the ‘forgotten ring.'" Tad returned, nailed take two of the proposal, and got a "Yes!" A celebratory drive along the scenic coast and an intimate dinner in Carmel Valley followed.

"Everything about the proposal was so unexpected," Annie says. "I didn't think it was going to be during the day and I certainly didn't think he was going to forget the ring. But, every little twist made it so much more memorable."

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