A Botrivier man has proposed to his girlfriend of nine months in the aisles of a Pick n Pay store in Caledon in the Western Cape, via the store's microphone.
Kobus Swart, the soon-to-be groom, popped the question to his unsuspecting partner, Zesta Venter, while she was grocery shopping.
In a statement issued, Swart explained that he wanted to surprise his lover.
“Zesta is sharp, she’d know the engagement was happening as soon as you told her to dress up nicely, so we plotted a surprise inside Pick n Pay,” he explained.
“No one has ever done it before, so it was a unique way to propose, and you automatically have a whole crowd of people to cheer and congratulate you.”
In a bid to keep the engagement a suprise, the soon-to-be groom parked in a different area of the shopping centre so that Venter would not spot his car.
He then waited in hiding until the store management called her to the service desk, over the store announcement system, where he was waiting to propose.
“I got on the microphone and got down on one knee. Zesta was very surprised and said ‘yes’,” he said.
Commenting on the surprise, Venter said she saw Pick n Pay’s floor admin manager Danie Gunter walking towards her with a bunch of flowers. She said she thought they were giving her a gift until she saw her boyfriend.
The couple, who have live together on a dairy farm in Botrivier, a small town in the Western Cape, met on “Koer”, an Afrikaans dating app.
Venter was living in Citrusdal, also in the Western Cape, at the time.
But he was determined to see Venter so he drove a 200 kilometres to meet her when they first started dating. Swart said they had a braai and he instantly knew that “this was the one”.
Meanwhile, Venter’s mother, Susan Pero, said it was her idea for the couple to get engaged in Pick n Pay while doing something “ordinary.”
“An engagement is not about showing off and being fancy, it is about the commitment and the love they have for each other,” she believes. “Management was very willing to help out when we told them about our idea.”
Pero added that the couple are “so in love”. “The twinkle is in both their eyes. She is my only daughter, and I am so happy for her.”
Swart and Venter’s garden wedding is expected to be held next weekend (November 25).
Meanwhile, the Pick n Pay’s floor admin manager Gunter added that he was thrilled to be part of the surprise engagement.
“I had to get my acting skills in place, but it was a nice feeling.”
He said that the staff and even the customers in the store were excited. “It was an incredible moment to share with these two people, and we are lucky Pick n Pay was chosen,” he said.
To add to the festivities, Pick n Pay Caledon gifted the couple with two cases of sparkling wine to use for the wedding toasts.