Man Proposed To His Girlfriend Over And Over Again, But She Kept Hilariously Missing His Cues

It was certainly a unique way to ask for your partner’s hand in marriage, yet it lined up with Okoro’s personality. Yes, the resident of Hertfordshire, England, always loved a joke, and he placed great store by off-the-cuff ideas. Even so, though, you might reasonably wonder how this bizarre plan actually came about.

Well, Okoro went into a bit more detail on that front in a lengthy Facebook post. In the message, he outlined how tricky proposals can be, suggesting that played a part. But ultimately, it was something else that pushed Read’s boyfriend into initiating his unorthodox method.

Okoro wrote, “Those who have gone through this [know that] you want to propose in a way that speaks to you as a person and couple. Some plan a flash mob, a fancy meal, or even arrange a ‘Marry me’ sign. I couldn’t do this because ‘Edi doesn’t plan.’ I’m a spontaneous improviser!”

“This made it even more of a challenge because Cally knows this,” Okoro continued. “The moment I planned a holiday or meal she would have clocked on to what I was about to do.” As a result, he found himself carrying the engagement ring he’d selected wherever he went, with the Hertfordshire resident constantly on the lookout for the perfect opportunity.

Mind you, there was just one problem – such opportunities proved to be few and far between. This meant that Okoro ended up holding onto the ring for weeks. Imagine how frustrating it must've been for Okoro! He had the ring in his pocket but the moment was never quite right. Well, a surprisingly close call at home ended up giving Okoro a unique idea.

Okoro recalled, “After a month or so of waiting for the right moment, I was sitting on the sofa admiring ‘my precious.’ [But] Cally almost caught me staring at the ring, and it hit me! All these missed opportunities mixed in with the thought — Cally doesn’t know I have the ring! I should just start documenting these moments!”

“This escalated quickly into trying to get as many photos of Cally with the ring without her knowing,” Okoro said. “Yes, she had no idea what I was doing in these photos! The idea was to take as many photos, in more daring scenarios, until I found the perfect moment to propose, or until I got caught.”

Later, Okoro began to share these hilarious images on Facebook, too, charting his exploits. Would Read ever notice what was going on? In truth, the first set-up gave her ample opportunity to spot the ring, as it appeared to be sitting in plain sight in their room.

Yep, Okoro placed the engagement band in Read’s jewelry dish. It sat near the edge, surrounded by her other accessories. Surely she must’ve seen it, right? Nope! Incredibly, the ring stayed there for a couple of days completely unnoticed. From there, her boyfriend then decided to ratchet things up a notch.

You see, on another occasion Okoro spotted Read with her back turned at the far side of a room. She seemed to be focused on something by their television set. So, he pulled out the ring in its box and held it in plain view. All his partner would have had to do was move her head ever so slightly to catch his cheeky smile.

Or Read could’ve looked directly to her right! The reflection from the TV screen would’ve given everything away. In the end, though, she missed the chance. But that proved to be the tip of the iceberg when it came to Okoro’s brazen ring-teasing. For instance, he crept into their bedroom once while his girlfriend was napping.

As she slumbered, Okoro quietly made his way to the side of the bed and held out the ring again. If Read had opened her eyes at that precise moment, she would’ve had quite the surprise! Yet she didn’t stir, giving the Hertfordshire resident more chance to try his luck.

In fact, Okoro opted to get into bed with his partner, before pulling out his camera for another shot. This time, he had the box and ring right next to Read’s sleeping face. You could tell by his grin that he was enjoying himself. And the fun only continued after that as the couple went out and about together.

Yes, Okoro didn’t just restrict himself to sneaky shots around their home. The sneaky fun continued in public! Once, he and Read were waiting in line to buy something at a store. When the latter got to the cash register, he popped the ring out and held it behind her back.

Okoro even found time to pose for a selfie with the ring. And all the while Read remained completely unaware of what was happening, further prolonging the hilarity. How many other tricks did her beau have up his sleeve at that point? Well, quite a few actually. He just kept pushing the boundaries...

On another occasion Read was sitting on a bike near the couple’s car. Okoro was inside the vehicle, right next to the window. He went on to open up the box and position it so it would’ve been in the corner of her eye. Did she spot him flaunting the ring? Nope.

So Okoro decided to push his luck a little further. After avoiding detection in the car, the couple headed home, with Okoro climbing their flight of stairs first. Then, as Read brought her bike up the steps, Okoro flashed the ring right at her. How could she miss that?

Miss it Read did, though, opening the door for Okoro to take still more risks. During an evening spent at home, he saw that his girlfriend was leaning down over the bathroom sink. So, of course he whipped out the band again, this time standing just outside the doorway. His face was pure, mischievous joy!

But if you thought all of those attempts were risky, wait until the next batch. Each new venture seemed to be more daring than the last. To begin with, Okoro walked into the bedroom with his camera while Read was snoozing there, before asking, “What am I holding in my hand?” It was the ring’s box, clear as day.

This had to be the moment where Read clocked on, right? Well actually, she couldn’t make out what the object was. Okoro explained why via Facebook. He revealed, “Cally basically can’t see without her glasses…so I took advantage.” The sneaky scamp!

Getting ever more brazen, Okoro followed that up by placing the ring on Read’s back as she lay in bed looking at her phone. That’s not a typo, folks — it was literally just behind her head. At this rate, we could imagine him doing this for years and still not getting caught...

The fun didn’t stop there, either. Okoro began to hide the ring in certain shots with Read, while also sticking to the selfies behind her back. He got more obvious with each picture, as you'll see for yourself!

This photo is a properly cheeky affair, with Okoro holding the ring right above Read’s face. Sadly for her, she was peering through a pair of large binoculars at the time. Then, when the couple decided to chill out on a beach, he placed the box next to the bag she was using as a pillow.

For the big finish, though, Okoro shared one last photo that arguably trumped everything else. Yes, in this final image, he put the ring in the palm of Read’s hand. Mind you, she was fast asleep and remained none the wiser. Anyway, all of these shenanigans leaves us with one question: Did Okoro ever do the deed for real?

Thankfully for Okoro, he did eventually find a way to propose to Read, confirming the news in a Facebook post from August 2019. But how did he do it? To answer that, the Hertfordshire resident put together a video that he went on to share roughly 12 months later.

In the clip, Okoro looks back on his hilarious exploits, before coming clean. He says, “Cally and I love to travel. Wherever we go, we bring a little something back with us. On this particular occasion, we visited our now-special place. Cally picked up a shell. I picked up… yes, you guessed it.”

The video then cuts to a shot of the ring, which is half-buried in sand on a beach. “In that moment, I realized that Cally and I share so many memories together,” Okoro continues. “And for me, that’s what my proposal and question was truly about. ‘Do you want to continue to make memories in this life together?’”

At this stage, the video transitions to a shot of Okoro on one knee on the beach. There’s no way Read missed the cue this time! He notes, “Cally was taken back by surprise and happiness. She cried a little. And [then she] said… yes!” But don't be fooled by the couple's happily ever after; Okoro's shenanigans were far from over.

You may be wondering what Read's reaction was to Okoro's sneaky proposal pictures. Well, before he could get her reaction, their story quickly went viral! Yes, his initial Facebook post earned roughly 100,000 likes and just under 70,000 shares. Meanwhile, it also generated around 30,000 comments from social media users. Their lives changed seemingly overnight.

People just couldn’t get enough of Okoro’s wonderfully inventive scheme. And it wasn’t only social media users taking an interest, either. BBC News, The Independent, and Metro all covered the story. The newly-engaged couple became international viral sensations, too.

Yep, when The Kelly Clarkson Show picked up on what Okoro had done, the TV show shared the story on social media. As for the happy couple, they created a separate Facebook page in September 2019 which focused on everything that had happened. It revealed never-before-details about Okoro's playful scheme and the eventual proposal.

Known simply as Cally & Edi, the page has over 7,600 likes and more than 8,000 followers at the time of writing. But now we’re curious — when did Read discover what her fiancé had been doing prior to the “real” proposal? Well, Okoro shed a bit of light on that after posting a photo on his Facebook account in August 2019.

Okoro wrote, “We took this photo not long after she said YES. [But] she didn’t know about this library until several weeks later! My smile is a ‘You know nothing Cally Read’ smile.” With that in mind, he posted a video on the Cally & Edi page which showed her reaction to his scheme…as she sat alongside the rest of the family.

In the video, Okoro shows off the pictures that he snapped during those few weeks, drawing laughs from everyone – including Read. She seems to take it all in good spirits, as she hugged her beloved partner at the end. Since that clip was posted, it has earned roughly 7,700 views. Yet for all the coverage and attention that this story got, one of the most impressive things about it was highlighted in September 2019.

You see, Okoro managed to inspire another guy who found himself in a similar predicament when it came to proposing. His name is Colton Vaters, and he shared his tale online. Vaters wrote, “I bought the ring about five months or so ago knowing that I wanted to propose, but I had no idea how I was going to do it."

"So, I began brainstorming, and that kept going, and kept going and I had no idea what I wanted to do. That all changed when I saw a post about how someone else proposed.” Then, Vaters went over Okoro’s idea and revealed that he followed suit — but in his own unique way.

The Facebook user added, “It all went to plan and I would highly recommend this to anyone planning on asking the big question in the future. It was a cool way to make the proposal fun, and take the stress away.” Okoro and Read soon acknowledged Vaters’ story via the Cally & Edi Facebook page.

They excitedly wrote, “Think we’ve started something!” Stepping away from that, though, we’re left with one last question. When did the pair finally get hitched? Unfortunately for Okoro and Read, their wedding day just happened to fall smack dab in the middle of the pandemic. This didn't squash the fun-loving couple's spirits, however.

Okoro and Read became husband and wife in August 2021. They tied the knot just ahead of their scheduled wedding celebration on a romantic, characteristically-spontaneous whim. The couple are planning on re-staging the postponed event at a later date, so a big celebration is still on the cards. Still, the unpredictable nature of the pandemic has made planning anything difficult...

It's one thing to be like Cally and Edi, two young people with their entire lives ahead of them. But for those with a far less guaranteed future, time is of the essence. We all learned how to be spontaneous during the pandemic, but one woman learned the value of going with your gut far earlier than even Cally and Edi.

A resident of Ionia, Michigan, Rhonda White was like countless other people her age prior to her cancer diagnosis. Indeed, the 50-year-old was the matriarch of a large family, keeping watch over her children. And in addition to that, her love life appeared to be in a good place as well.

In recent years, White had been dating a man named Brian Parkhouse, and they had been going steady for some time. So on that note, all seemed to be going well for the mom back in 2018, as she coped with the ups and downs of daily life. However, everything changed later that year following a gut-wrenching visit to a medical facility.

As previously mentioned, White was diagnosed with cancer at that time, and her health went on to deteriorate over the next couple of months. By November 2018 the battle appeared to be coming to an end, as the Ionia resident was staying in a hospice. But at that point, she caught everyone off-guard when she uttered five words in Brian’s ear.

When we grow older, we begin to think about certain aspects of our lives more and more. In keeping with that, health is usually at the forefront of those thoughts. After all, one of our biggest collective fears is falling victim to a disease that could end our lives prematurely.

For some of us, we’ll be fortunate enough to avoid such ailments in our later lives, living comfortably alongside our families. But sadly, not everyone is that lucky. White could certainly attest to that, as her world was turned upside down in September 2018 following a devastating diagnosis at the hospital.

White’s struggles had begun at the start of that month, when she complained of a nasty headache at home. Unfortunately for the mom, the pain didn’t show signs of subsiding, prompting her to visit a medical facility. Given her symptoms, the hospital staff then decided to run some tests to determine the issue.

At that stage, White underwent a couple of MRI scans before receiving the results. As it turned out, she was suffering from a brain tumor, but that didn’t signal the end of her ailments. Alongside that, the parent was also told that she had a form of skin cancer known as melanoma.

Off the back of that shocking discovery, White’s physicians then made a significant decision later that day. Indeed, they performed an urgent procedure to take out the tumor. Thankfully the doctors were able to remove the growth from her brain, rounding off a whirlwind few hours for her loved ones.

Looking back on that time, one of White’s daughters gave some insight while speaking with PEOPLE magazine in November 2018. Unsurprisingly, it proved to be a very stressful period for all concerned. “It was one of the craziest days of my life,” Jordan White recalled. “And there was a lot of crying.”

But while the tumor was no longer a factor after the surgery, White still needed to deal with the melanoma. Tragically, though, she was given some bleak news on that front by her doctors. Following a few more tests, they noted that the cancer had spread to her liver and one of her lungs.

Prior to White’s health issues, she lived a fairly normal life back in her hometown of Ionia. She’d plied her trade at a local car factory, where she had worked as a “quality auditor.” Furthermore, the 50-year-old was also part of a large family, welcoming four children into the world during her younger years.

Alongside Jordan, White had two other daughters named Jasmine and Brieannah, as well as a son called Derek. Additionally, she became a grandparent in her later life too, following the birth of young Bryce Conner. And away from that, 2015 proved to be another important year in the mom’s life.

For you see, White had formed a romantic relationship with Brian Parkhouse during that time. Much like her, Parkhouse also hailed from Michigan, growing up in the town of Wacousta. The happy couple were together for the next three years, completely unaware of what was coming in the latter half of 2018.

As we mentioned earlier, White’s cancer was now affecting other parts of her body, which led to a heartbreaking prognosis. Speaking to the Spectrum Health website in November 2018, she touched upon those conversations at the hospital. The grandma said, “I was told I didn’t have much time to live.”

Regarding melanoma, Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) provides a detailed description of the condition via its website. According to the healthcare provider, White’s situation wasn’t that unusual, as this form of cancer can escalate if it isn’t caught quickly enough. But the NHS post didn’t end there, though.

“Melanoma is a type of skin cancer that can spread to other organs in the body,” the post explained. “The most common sign of melanoma is the appearance of a new mole or a change in an existing mole. This can occur anywhere on the body, but the most commonly affected areas are the back in men and the legs in women.”

The NHS post continued, “Melanomas are uncommon in areas that are protected from sun exposure. In most cases, [they] have an irregular shape and are more than one color. The mole may also be larger than normal and can sometimes be itchy or bleed. [You should] look out for a mole that changes progressively in shape, size or color.”

It happens to be the case that certain people are more susceptible to this particular condition than others. Generally speaking, those with paler skin are at more risk, as well as individuals with blonde or ginger hair. As for why that’s the case, the sun can play a big role in the development of melanoma and skin cancer.

“Melanoma is caused by skin cells that begin to develop abnormally,” the NHS post read. “Exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light from the sun is thought to cause most melanomas, but there’s evidence to suggest that some may result from sunbed exposure. The type of sun exposure that causes melanoma is sudden intense exposure.”

Going back to White’s case, the NHS website also confirmed that once the melanoma has spread to other parts of the body, not much else can be done. In those instances, doctors try their best to contain the disease and make the patient more comfortable. The Ionia resident, however, was given a rather grave timeframe by her physicians.

As White’s health continued to deteriorate in the weeks after the diagnosis, her doctors then shared some gut-wrenching information with her loved ones. In their mind, there was a high chance that the 50-year-old would pass away before Thanksgiving in 2018. And those fears were only strengthened in the early part of November.

White’s condition took a real turn for the worse during that period, to the point where she was struggling to speak. By this time, she was being cared for by hospice staff, who tended to her needs. However, as the mom-of-four continued to battle her cancer, a doctor came up with an unorthodox idea to help.

Dr. Gretchen Roe and her colleagues tried to ease White’s discomfort through a variety of different medicines. And in the end, the group stumbled upon an unusual concoction that thankfully brought her back from the brink. Roe went on to describe this moment as a “miracle” in an article on the Spectrum Health website.

Those thoughts were somewhat echoed by White’s mom Shari Taylor as well, who was there at the time. Shortly after the new medication took effect, she told the health site, “Yesterday, we did not even know if she was going to come out of it. At four o’clock yesterday, she woke up and she was talking [to us].”

Yet no one could have predicted what eventually happened when White caught sight of Parkhouse. Despite being mortally ill, she shared a truly touching moment with her long-term partner, before uttering five simple words. On that note, daughter Jordan described the scene during her interview with PEOPLE magazine in November 2018.

“[White] was in and out of it last Monday,” Jordan recalled. “[But] she got on some medicine and woke up Tuesday. And she saw Brian and they were talking. She was like, ‘Baby, will you marry me?’ It was awesome and fantastic, and everyone in the room was excited. We weren’t expecting that at all.”

Following White’s surprise proposal, Parkhouse quickly accepted and shed a few tears with his future wife. Yet while this was a wonderful moment, time was still against the happy couple. Even though the former auditor had recovered from her previous state, she was still in a precarious position at the hospice.

So with that in mind, the staff then sprang into action, as they planned to hold the wedding ceremony a day later. The event was set to take place at the facility, with everyone chipping in. Thanks to that hard work, everything was in place 24 hours on from White’s request.

The speed of that particular turnaround might have come as something of a surprise to a few people, but White wasn’t one of them. Looking ahead to the ceremony, she told the Spectrum Health website, “You don’t need a lot of time to plan a wedding. You just need two hearts that care.”

However, that’s not to say that the hospice staff didn’t have a lot of work to do before the wedding, as Jordan explained. “They were so excited,” she told PEOPLE. “They got the cake for us, they brought a chaplain, a harpist and a guitarist.” And their efforts didn’t end there.

In addition to that, someone else also stumbled across a purple wig for White to wear at the wedding. The hairpiece matched the color of the bride’s dress, completing her outfit on the day. But this bittersweet story had one more twist in store when Jordan’s sister Brieannah came up with an idea.

Due to White’s ailing health, Brieannah wanted to tie the knot with her partner too. As a result of that, the event at the hospice became a double wedding. The 50-year-old’s daughter told PEOPLE, “Since this all happened so fast, I couldn’t stand the idea that she wouldn’t be able to see my wedding.”

With everything in place, about 40 guests attended the double wedding ceremony at the hospice on November 15, 2018. From there, the two couples went on to exchange their vows before becoming husband and wife in the most surprising of circumstances. As for the event itself, Jordan was extremely impressed.

White’s daughter told the magazine, “It was probably one of the coolest services [I’ve been to]. It was truly a beautiful wedding. The chaplain really took the time to know us and there were some inside family jokes. And my mom was really impatient, she shoved the ring on her finger.”

Brieannah and her new husband Jason Musser were just as thrilled, with the former claiming that she’d “never seen” White display so much joy. Furthermore, Musser told Spectrum Health, “I’ve been with Brieannah for eight years. Rhonda is pretty much like a mother to me. She’s always excited about so many things.”

After the wedding ceremony was completed, White was then taken to her room at the hospice via her wheelchair. Sadly, she passed away just a couple of days on from tying the knot with Parkhouse. But despite the heartbreaking loss, her daughters wanted to make something clear to the public.

Brieannah and Jordan informed PEOPLE, “[We] don’t want people to feel sorry for our situation.” From there, the former added, “[White] fought it every single day. We want them to be happy that she got to get married.” Although they weren’t looking for sympathy, the sisters did try to raise some funds following White’s passing.

Indeed, Jordan set up a GoFundMe page in an attempt to cover White’s medical expenses at the hospital. The fundraising effort was subsequently shared over 370 times online, before it was eventually closed. By that point, though, it had brought in close to $1,400 in donations, with users looking to help out the family.

Meanwhile, White made one final Facebook post just before she passed away after the wedding. Sharing the Spectrum Health article written about the event, the mom simply wrote, “Forever and a day.” That message went on to earn over 110 likes and more than 80 shares on the social media website.