It was supposed to be a beautiful Mexican sunset and “I Love You” spelled out in flowers, a perfectly exquisite and private setting for presenting his love with the ring he sold his motorcycle to buy. Instead, according to “Good Morning America” on Feb. 22, Ryan Houston got Mexican police, guns and that lovely ring diving to the bottom of the ocean.
"I spent about three months planning this proposal," Houston told ABC News. He chose the Secrets Aura Cozumel as the perfect place.
The hotel’s event coordinator promised that Houston and girlfriend Laura Yearout would be the only two on the pier with an unobstructed view of the sunset. It didn't go exactly as planned. There were at least a dozen people on the pier with a parked yacht blocking the sunset.
Dinner hadn't appeared and the music didn't play at the right time. And then there was this guy in a Speedo waving at him from the yacht.
So Houston suggested they untie the yacht and give it a little push in an attempt to at least salvage the sunset. What seemed like a good idea at the time quickly turned into a nightmare.
They shoved off the yacht and then the guy in the Speedo starts screaming that it wasn't his yacht, he was just watching it for his boss. Houston felt really bad for him so he helped him tie the yacht back up.
"Just about that time, we see a Mexican police truck pull in and they tell me police want to speak to me about damaging a yacht and I'm thinking, 'You've got to be kidding me,’” he said.
Houston was handcuffed and telling his girlfriend to take his valuables. She didn't know about the engagement ring pinned into his shirt, but she was about to find out. "I've still got this 1.84 karat diamond ring safety pinned inside my shirt and I have to make the decision either to go to Mexican jail with this ring on me or let Laura take it," he said.
He told her to get the ring out of his shirt. As she tries to unpin the ring, disaster strikes once again.
"There on the pier, while I've got my hands cuffed behind my back, she reaches inside my shirt, feels the ring and puts two and two together," Houston said. "She gasps and then pulls the ring real hard and the safety pin pops. The ring comes flying out of the shirt and then out of her fingers. It bounces off the dock and goes in the ocean."
"She's screaming, just frantically, 'He was going to propose! He was going to propose!'" he said. "They're leading me off the pier and I yell back at her, 'Just mark the spot where it fell in the ocean. Find a landmark.'" Meanwhile, the police are shoving him towards their truck with a machine gun pointed at him.
And then, just as quickly, he was let go when the police established there was no damage to the yacht. The hotel, feeling really bad about everything, put them in the penthouse suite.
Houston couldn't enjoy it, though. He needed to get the ring back. Being an experienced diver, he went down, finally got lucky and found the ring.
"I walked over to her dripping wet in my wet suit, kneeled down -- she didn't know I'd found it -- and I kneeled down and proposed to her on the pier, in the middle of the night, in my scuba gear," Houston laughed. "She said yes."
The hotel has offered to host their July 5 wedding for free and give them a complimentary two-week stay for a honeymoon. They’re thinking about it.
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