GroomGroove.com interviews a recently engaged groom, Graham McGowen from North Carolina. Graham proposed to his girlfriend, Kristen, after two years of dating. Now an engaged husband-to-be, Graham looks back on his months of planning and proudly share with GroomGroove.com what it took to pull off the "perfect proposal."

GroomGroove.com: How did you keep your plans a secret, and for how long?

Graham: Keeping the proposal secret was by far the hardest part - especially since we live together. I had to keep the proposal a secret for seven long months. I kept the conspiracy small at the start. The only people who knew were those who needed to help me work on or design a piece that would take a long time to craft. Most were ok with communicating by email. I arranged to have suppliers call only when Kristen, who is in graduate school, had classes. Things got a bit more complicated as the date of the proposal approached and so many parts were coming together. More and more people were in the loop, and if it had gone on one month longer, I don't know if I could have kept it under wraps.

I had some good advice from an artist who was helping me with one of the pieces: "What ever you do, don't lie!" So whenever a suspicious phone call came in, or random package came through the mail, I would simply say, "I'm getting you a cool gift. Now hand it over, please!" With her birthday in the not-too-distant future, and our dating anniversary even closer, that was neither a lie, nor a tip that something out of the ordinary was coming.

GroomGroove.com: What else did you have planned for the actual proposal?

Graham: As more and more of our friends began getting engaged, I listened to the different stories and paid attention to the ones that really piqued Kristen's interest. The ones that were the most thought out and personal to the couple were by far the most romantic and impressive. I also began to hear some funny stories of complicated proposals that went awry. I heard of guys nervously waiting for someone else to do their part, or trying to get their girlfriends to go somewhere they wouldn't normally go. All this lead me to one conclusion: Plan everything out thoroughly, but above all, keep the actual proposal as simple as possible! I wanted something that showed a lot of effort and thought - to make it more romantic - while also being simple to execute on the actually date of the proposal.

GroomGroove.com: So, what was your proposal like?

Graham: To give a little background, Kristen loves snow globes. She always enjoyed them and had a desire to collect them, but never actually bought one for herself - fearing they were too dorky or silly. When our first Valentine's day together was approaching, her best friend tipped me off. Nervously, I bought her first snow globe. She loved it, and ever since I've given her a snow globe on romantic occasions. As her collection grew, I knew just what I could do for a meaningful proposal. I surfed the Internet and found a woman three states away who made custom clay figurines based on photographs. I also did some research and found a company that sold snow globe kits, and another that made the musical movement with a wind-up key.

GroomGroove.com: Wow. This sounds like a lot of planning. You're quite the romantic. What next?

Graham: I emailed the producer of our favorite band and received permission to have a song that meant a lot to us as a couple made into a custom musical movement. I then sent it along to a company on the other side of the country to complete the musical piece. I won an eBay auction for tiny diamond pieces a jeweler couldn't do much with and weren't big enough to sell individually. And finally, I found a local wood turner to craft a wooden base with my theme in mind. Once all the pieces came together, I glued the figurine to a rubber gasket, filled the globe with water and floating diamond bits, placed the musical movement in the base and assembled them all together. The finish product was beautiful! I'm not the world's most artistic person or even all that crafty (ed.- I doubt that. This is pretty spectacular.) but directing a host of artists and making sure they stick to a theme was hard work that was right up my alley.

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