Man proposes to girlfriend via Animal Crossing after COVID-19 pandemic foiled original plan
When one Utah man’s plan to propose to his girlfriend in Italy was foiled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he decided to get creative when he couldn’t wait to ask her to be his wife any longer.
Quan Le decided to ask his girlfriend, Morgan Reynolds, to marry him while inside the virtual world of a game called Animal Crossing.
In the video, Le’s avatar is seen waiting for Reynolds to join him in the game. The avatar is seen sitting on a wooden swing on a cliff that is overlooking an ocean in the virtual world.
Reynolds joins Le and they move to a tree that Le asks Reynolds’ avatar to cut down. She does so, and when the tree disappears, a little blue box is revealed on the ground where the tree stood.
Le then instructs Reynolds’ avatar to open the box and it reveals a diamond ring inside.
That’s when the real-life Le gets up and retrieves a box and turns to Reynolds and asks her for her hand in marriage.
After happy tears and kisses, Le reveals that Reynolds’ whole family is watching the stream, so they could all be there together virtually.
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Le had attempted to plan dates at restaurants, hikes or to even have a staged housewarming party in order to pop the question, but the stay-at-home orders and closed businesses made that extremely difficult.
“So that’s when this idea popped up as my plan F. I spent a month sourcing and setting up the island for the one proposal,” he said.
At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses and trips had to be shut down as the virus rapidly spread across the globe. Graduation ceremonies were canceled, birthdays were spent at home, and working from home became the new norm for many.
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As the U.S. and other countries start to reopen, authorities are wrestling with balancing demands for constitutional rights and personal freedoms with warnings from health officials that being lax will have deadly consequences.
Since the virus emerged in China late last year and spread worldwide, there have been more than 8 million confirmed cases and over 446,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University as of June 17. Experts say the true toll is likely much higher.
The U.S. death toll has exceeded 117,000.
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The Associated Press and Storyful contributed to this report.