Every successful marriage proposal includes an element of magic, but Neil Henry took it to another level at last week's Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
After swallowing a can of pasta shaped into letters of the alphabet, Henry invited his girlfriend, Charlie Gardner, onstage for a trick that involved pulling a string of letters out of his mouth, one at a time.
Gardner read the letters aloud to the audience, laughing at the first letter "M" before appearing startled by the follow-up letter, "A." With the next letter ("R"), Gardner laughed and said, "You're not, are you?" When another "R" followed, she couldn't contain herself: "Oh, [shoot], you're kidding me!" When the "Y" came out of his mouth to finish the word "marry," Gardner gasped, "Oh, my God!", and covered her mouth with both hands.
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The audience cheered and applauded as Henry pulled the remaining two letters out of his mouth to finish the sentence: "Marry me." Gardner wept tears of joy and hugged Henry, who opted for spoken words — and one more trick — to finish his proposal on one knee.
"Having you in my life is real magic, and I never want that magic to end," said Henry, who then burned a small piece of paper that appeared to turn into a small jewelry box containing an engagement ring.
With a few nervous laughs, Henry popped the question, to which an emotional Gardner replied, "Of course I will!"
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News and video of the proposal went viral in the days that followed. Uploaded to YouTube on Tuesday, the video trended on the video-sharing website all weekend and collected almost 750,000 views as of Monday morning.
According to Scotland's Daily Record, Gardner said shortly after the show that she "didn't know this would happen at all. I haven't even told my mum yet." She added that the proposal happened on the second anniversary of the day they met — in Edinburgh.
The feeling remained magical as of Sunday, when Henry tweeted that he and Gardner were still "over the moon."
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