Montezuma Jewelers Blog

Montezuma Jewelers Blog
December 28th, 2015
Shawn Wright says his girlfriend Maylynn Stephenson is "out of this world," so the romantic Canadian devised a way to launch her engagement ring into the stratosphere.

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Mounted on a wooden spatula, attached to a high-altitude weather balloon, monitored by a GPS unit and filmed with a GoPro, the engagement ring lifted off from Calgary just before dawn. In a fascinating three-minute video, the ring is shown rising above the earth with a gorgeous sunrise in the background.

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The ring ascended 110,000 feet (about 20 miles), which is considered near-space. Propelled by a jet-stream, the weather balloon and its payload eventually parachuted safely more 200 miles away in Taber, Alberta.

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"I thought, 'How could I make this special? I can't just hand it to her,'" he told HLN. "I thought for a split second that it would be cool to send it into space. Kind of enchanting the ring for her."

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Armed with surreal footage of the ring floating high above the Earth at sunrise, Wright produced a video chronicling the journey. The video ends with the question, "Maylynn. Will you marry me?"

After viewing the video and accepting the "enchanted" engagement ring, Stephenson couldn't have been more impressed by her fiancé's romantic proposal, although she did admit that she would have "freaked out a bit" if she knew in advance that her ring was being launched into space.

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"It was definitely fantastic. Mind blowing. Completely off my radar," Stephenson told The Calgary Eyeopener. "I didn't see it coming at all."

Wright was confident he wouldn't lose the ring because he was able to track it in real time using both a radio transmitter and a GPS devise. At one point in the flight, the weather balloon was heading toward the U.S. border, but a fortunate change in the jet stream kept the ring in Canada.

The 29-year-old Wright had originally proposed to Stephenson with a faux diamond ring a year ago while they were on holiday in Barcelona, Spain. Over the past year, he saved up enough money to buy the actual ring and to assemble the components for his elaborate, high-flying video.

Wright uploaded his amazing footage to YouTube and included this funny and heartwarming caption... "To my fiancée. This is my way of showing you how much you mean to me. I have been working on this project in secret. I hope you think it is as out of this world as you are. I love you! PS... I owe you a kitchen spatula."

Wright and Stephenson have known each other since they were pre-teens. About six years ago, they started dating after reconnecting via Facebook.

Check out Wright's video, below...


Images: Screen captures via YouTube; Shawn Wright/Facebook.