Man drops wedding ring off bridge during proposal
A nervous boyfriend dropped his engagement ring from a bridge onto a ski slope. (SOURCE: WXYZ, FAMILY PHOTOS, CITY OF ROCHESTER HILLS, BOYNE MOUNTAIN RESORT)
ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. (WXYZ) – A couple in Michigan is still planning a wedding after their engagement ring went missing during the proposal.
Trevor Van Camp had long been planning the moment he would ask his longtime girlfriend, Danielle Jenkins, to marry him.
“For a couple months, I kinda had it planned in my head that I wanted to do it, and she kept sending me TikToks, this, that and the other, kept hinting,” he said.
Van Camp said she had been wanting to go up north to Rochester Hills to visit Skybridge Michigan at Boyne Mountain. So he thought their trip to Boyne last month was the perfect time and place to get on one knee.
“I told her I’m gonna have the couple behind us take a picture, and so I went and told them, and I whispered into the lady’s ear, ‘I’m going to propose,’” he said.
With the camera rolling, Van Camp snuck the ring out of his jacket pocket and got on one knee to ask the big question.
However, at this exciting moment, Van Camp’s plan quite literally went downhill fast.
“I’m shaking because I’m scared of heights, and I’m afraid she’s going to say no, this, that and the other, just a domino effect of things really,” he said.
As he went to pull out the ring, it fell from his hand, through the bridge and tumbled 118 feet onto a snow-covered ski hill.
“I didn’t even get to see the ring. I just knew it fell, I went, ‘Uh oh,’” Jenkins said.
The couple alerted Boyne staff, who used metal detectors to help search. After more than two hours, however, they called it.
“We kinda gave up and thought it was a lost cause at that point,” Van Camp said.
Pat Harper, the snowmaking supervisor who was helping them look, told them he would keep at it. In the overnight hours, he had a hit.
“When I swung over one of the footprints, it toned,” he said. “I dug the snow down like I’ve done probably 30 other times, 40 other times, and there was just dirt there.”
Harper dug up some of the dirt and scooped it back with some snow in his hand.
“Then the edge of the ring stuck out, and I kind of sat there for a minute, and I was like, ‘There’s no way you just found that,’” he said.
The next morning before they left town, the couple got the good news, and the engagement ring was placed firmly on Jenkins’s finger.
“It was awesome. I can’t thank Boyne enough or Pat enough himself for doing that for us. You know, it’s awesome,” Van Camp said.
The two said they now plan to get married at Boyne.
“It was a big story,” Jenkins said. “It was something crazy to tell, and now it’s our story to tell.”
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