How to propose at Festivals - one man's story!

We received this heartwarming story in an email, from a man called Alan...

"I'd been planning to propose to my girlfriend Meg for a while now so thought, 'what better place than Glastonbury?' One of the acts that my girlfriend Meg wanted to see was Damien Rice who she adores. She'd been looking forward to seeing him since we got the tickets so, since then, all this made sense and seemed a good idea.

The night before I was pretty nervous. I thought that I'd take it steady on Saturday and have a relatively clear head for the task in hand. We eventually found our way over to Damien Rice in the afternoon sun and my mate wandered off to the bar on cue.

Anyway two songs into his set and disaster strikes. Meg it seems has not been taking it that easy at all. Having had a few too many Pear Ciders she decides that it would be best to head to the tent and sleep it off. What should I do? Erm panic!

'Come on', I said. 'Don't go back to the tent, you've waited ages to see this. Give it 10 more minutes.'

Meg was reluctant, complaining: "I really think that I will call it a day and catch up on some sleep."

This was not going according to plan!

'Right, pull yourself together', I thought. I took a deep breath. 'Think about it", I said to myself. "Damien Rice is playing in the background. Come on this is perfect, so just try and compose yourself'.

The pressure was building. I turned her around so that she was facing me sideways on from the stage. I took hold of her hand, bent down on one knee (in three inches of sludge), and said the five words which scared me more than anything in the world.

'Meg...', I said, '...will you marry me?'

Meg looked shocked. She went a tad white. 'Right, OK. Job done', I thought. At least now I've done it and she'll answer in a second.

'What are you doing on the floor?', she said.

'That was hardly the response that I was looking for', I felt like saying, 'Clearly making a fool of myself and getting muddy'. But I thought better of it and decided on the less sarcastic, 'Did you just hear what I said to you?'. 

I was still on the floor sinking at a rate of an inch a second. Various garbled conversation followed and then the penny seemed to drop.

'What did you just say?', she asked.

For the sake of clarity I thought that I'd better explain just so that there was no further confusion. The suspense was killing me.

'I just asked you to marry me and I am still waiting for an answer'. At this stage there were about 20 people stood around us who were beginning to stare. We were clearly on a par with Damien Rice, entertainment wise.

Meg looked around, the colour seemed to return to her cheeks (maybe through embarrassment?) then she replied, 'Yes, I will marry you'.

With that I stood up, put my arms around my future wife and cried like a girl for 2 minutes (Meg will say it was more like 20 minutes). The wedding will be in Norfolk sometime during August and September 2005!"

Congratulations Alan and Meg, on behalf of everyone at Virtual Festivals, and our 3 million readers!

Back to our Full Glastonbury 2004 Coverage