Let’s face it. Halloween is the greatest holiday, because it encompasses wonderful things like costumes, candy and pumpkins. Now imagine getting engaged surrounded by all that splendor. Sounds pretty epic, right?
Well that’s exactly what Jonathan Ehrlich from New City, New York, thought when he decided to propose to his girlfriend at the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.
More: Man incorporates fiancée’s late father into his sweet proposal (VIDEO)
For anyone who’s not familiar with The Blaze, it’s one of the most epic jack-o’-lantern displays on the east coast. The exhibition is set up at Van Cortlandt Manor, which is a historic landmark that was built back in the mid 1600s and is known to be haunted. There are approximately 7,000 pumpkins individually carved for the event by artists who started working on them back in June. If you’re wondering how the pumpkins stay fresh that long, they don’t — most are carved from fake pumpkin replicas, but they’re still all carved by hand.
Both Ehrlich and his now fiancé Jenna Bonvino are huge fans of the fall season, so the idea of proposing to her at such a fall-centric event seemed like a no-brainer. Ehrlich reached out to The Blaze’s Facebook page back in August of this year to see if they could come up with a special plan for the occasion. He spoke with one of the pumpkin carvers, Cheryl Bernstein, and together they came up with an adorable design for a unique engagement pumpkin based on a picture of them on vacation in California. The words, “Jenna, will you marry me?” would be carved underneath.
More: Men have dream weddings and this video explains it all
On Saturday, Oct. 17, the pumpkin went on display at the top of this huge floral cake made entirely out of pumpkins. Amidst many scarier pumpkin tableaus like a field of zombies and a giant spiderweb, the romantic cake definitely stood out. Ehrlich and Bonvino walked through The Blaze just like any other Halloween enthusiast, until they came to the end where the pumpkin proposal resided.
“Towards the end, there were a lot of really intricate pumpkins and I was taking the time to look at them, and then all of a sudden I saw a pumpkin that said ‘Jenna will you marry me?'” Bonvino told The Journal News.
Ehrlich, who claims he’s always prepared, was speechless when the time came. “I prepared all these things to say and I don’t think I said a quarter of what I wanted to. When the moment finally happened, I don’t know what happened to me. I kind of just lost it. I kind of fell apart and lost my cool and was this fumbling idiot. I said some stuff and I’m sure it was great.”
More: Man’s proposal at someone else’s wedding makes everyone furious
People had been passing by all night wondering what the not-so-scary pumpkin display was about, and who Jenna was, but after the proposal happened and she started crying, it all clicked into place. There were a ton of cheers, and Jenna excitedly screamed, “I’m Jenna! I’m Jenna!”
While not the usual terrified screams the ghosts of Van Cortlandt Manor are used to, I’m sure they were pleased considering the happy circumstances.
Leave a Comment