Brian Southern had the finishing touches on every last plan.
He’d picked out a diamond and had a ring custom-made. He contacted the West Baden Springs Hotel staff in early February. For a couple weeks, they communicated and sketched out plans to assist Brian in proposing to his girlfriend, Katie.
“I picked up the ring on March 1, and our intention was to
get engaged that third weekend in March at West Baden,” he said.
Brian then chuckles. We all know what happened around that
third weekend in March.
With practically everything shut down over the next few
months, Brian realizes he had plenty of time and opportunity to improvise with
some other proposal closer to home. “But it was important to both of us that we
had such a special event happen at a place we both feel is a home away from
home, so we waited and waited and waited,” he said.
Fast-forward to mid-May, and Brian got a call from Marsha
Tellstrom, the senior concierge at the hotel who helped Brian make his initial
plans in February. Marsha
and her husband Jan have assisted in scores of engagements over the years,
with Marsha in charge of the advance planning and Jan serving as the
photographer capturing the moment. Marsha let Brian know the hotel was
reopening, so he decided to give the engagement another shot on June 6.
The one wrinkle: Marsha wasn’t technically back at work yet
as the hotel was operating with very limited staff when it first reopened. But
the hotel’s director of operations got word of the engagement, and gave Brian a
call to assure him Marsha and Jan would be allowed to be there to assist in the
special day.
Next, Brian got a call from the hotel’s restaurant manager,
who wanted to help him pull off a meal with some memorable touches, as the
atrium wasn’t yet open for sit-down dining.
“She said, ‘We’re going to make this special for you, so just touch base when you get here, and we’ll keep it a secret.’”
After Brian and Katie took a stroll through the gardens and he surprised her by popping the question on the grand staircase outside the hotel, they sat down to dinner for two under the dome. Their private table next to the fireplace came with all the accents: a white tablecloth, a vase of roses, a small gift and an engagement dessert.
“Just made it an exceptionally incredible experience,” Brian
says. “It went above and beyond anything I could have ever anticipated or hoped
for. The management, even though they were short-staffed, did everything to
make it as if it was a full-service resort that weekend. It was incredible.”
The silver lining to the delayed engagement? You practically get the entire hotel to yourself. From getting a guestroom overlooking the atrium to seeing only about 10 other guests throughout the hotel, “it kind of felt like our own place,” Brian said. And the following Sunday morning at breakfast in the atrium, “I would guess that every person on staff came by to congratulate us and look at her ring,” Brian recalls.
For their next chapter, Brian and Katie have fingers crossed
for a fuller house. They’re already talking about having a wedding at West
Baden, the site of so many memories in their seven years together.
“It’s one of the best places to have a special moment,”
Brian says, “not only because the setting itself is unique and provides an
exceptional backdrop, but the staff and the level of service that you get there
always makes you feel special.”