Marriage proposals can be complicated and involved or simple and intimate, and everywhere in between. GroomGroove.com and Gillette Clinical Strength Antiperspirant teamed up to find a great marriage proposal, and found it with Joe Lombino’s marriage proposal to his fiancée, Carroll Anne. Joe won $1,000 in cash and a year’s supply of Gillette antiperspirant in our April 2008 contest. Here’s how his slightly-sweaty and nerve-wracking marriage proposal went:

Joe Lombino lives in Seaford, New York. His girlfriend (and now, fiancée), Caroll Anne Kolakowski is a grade school teacher, and Joe is in grad school studying to be a high school math teacher. Says Lombino about his winning marriage proposal: “My fiancée just began teaching this year. I called up her Assistant Principal and arranged to propose to her in her classroom.”

Having received the school’s blessing, Joe arrived with Carroll Anne’s sister at the school with boxes of shirts, pictured here, and an engagement ring in hand.

“I had the school secretaries call her to the main office to pick up a bouquet of flowers I had left. That got her out of the classroom. In the card, I had written: ‘Here’s to a memorable weekend. I can’t wait to see you tonight.’ This totally threw her off.”

Little did Carroll Anne know, but Joe, other teachers and Carroll Anne’s sister quickly got Carroll Anne’s students dressed in T-shirts reading: ‘I was there when Ms. Kolakowski got engaged.’ “The kids were in on it, and lined up with there arms out and up to form an archway. As for me, I was sitting in the back of the class on one of those small 4th grade chairs.”

“I was totally sweating bullets,” says Lombino, “and to make matters worse I was waiting for Carroll Anne to come back from the diversion and sitting on a small, 4th grade chair.”

You can imagine Carroll Anne’s reaction when she did get back to her classroom, knowing that something was up. “When she realized what the T-Shirts said, She said ‘YES!’ even before I got to ask “Will you marry me?” Lombino says.

“The next day, I received tons of congratulatory cards from parents of the kids in my class. I can’t imagine a better marriage proposal,” says Ms. Kolakowski. Nor can the guys at GroomGroove.com. Joe’s proposal is one made by a real man, not over the top and totally reflective of what both Joe and Carroll Anne have dedicated their lives to doing: teaching. Joe’s marriage proposal gets our nod as the best marriage proposal story of 2008. The proposal was made in March 2008, and the marriage is slated for March 2009.

Read more proposal stories by checking out GroomGroove.com’s marriage proposal story archive.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 26th, 2008 at 6:20 am and is filed under "Family involved" Marriage Proposals, "Lots of People involved" Marriage Proposals, "She didn't see it coming" Marriage Proposals, Creative Marriage Proposals, Really Cool Marriage Proposals, Winning Marriage Proposal Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.