You have no idea how hard it was to hide my proposal plan from Julianne...

Julianne and I began dating on August 6th, 2024. Early on, I had this deep sense that we were going to be together forever. But if you know Julianne, you know she’s very Type A - she wants to know what we’re doing, where we’re going, and when we’re doing it… wayyy in advance. That made planning a surprise proposal nearly impossible. As we got close to our one-year anniversary, I knew I needed to lock something in quickly.

When I started thinking about where to propose, nothing felt quite right. I wanted somewhere meaningful, somewhere special, and most importantly, somewhere she would never expect. When we were kids growing up together in our church’s children’s ministry, I was known as “Strawberry Ben.” So one morning in early August, I randomly searched “strawberry fields near me” just to see what would come up.

To my surprise, there was a massive you-pick field close by in Edmonton. I immediately contacted the owner, and got him in on the surprise!

Fast forward to September 29th, 2025. I was nervous, sweating and shaking nervous. I had just been given an opportunity to be part of a Chick-fil-A commercial (a whole other wild story), so I purposely scheduled it for the same day to give us something “normal” to talk about on the drive. Our photographer arrived early and somehow blended in - Julianne didn't notice her at all!

Once we started picking strawberries, I knew I had to move quick before she realized what was going on. To help it blend in, I got a strawberry shaped ring box. I took it out of my pocket and made some weird comment: "J!! Look at this weird strawberry I found!!!" She froze, finally realizing what was going on. I looked at her, got down on one knee, and asked her to marry me.

SHE SAID YES!!

Julianne, I love you - and I can't wait to spend forever with you

- Ben 🍓

Photos