Kieran Gregg of Williams Lake never expected her Leap Year Day marriage proposal would go viral after photos of it were posted on Reddit.
Gregg is of Irish descent and went with the tradition where legend says St. Patrick decreed women could propose on February 29.
"I'm a first generation Canadian," the 22 year old said. "My dad was born in Belfast."
On the day of the proposal, Gregg presented her 24 year old boyfriend Daniel Cupples with a series of cards and clues to send him on a little scavenger hunt featuring meaningful places in their past.
His journey ended an hour later in the wooded area near Lake City Secondary School's Columneetza campus where the couple had first met when they were students in 2010.
Even a big rock at the site held special memories for the both of them.
"It was where our good friend Kyle Vigeant who died a few years ago in a car accident used to play hacky sack when we were all in school," Gregg said.
Gregg had arranged for professional photographer Laureen Carruthers to document the proposal.
Adding to the ambiance, Carruther's boyfriend and professional guitarist Joel Gyselinck was there to play the couple's special song, Stolen Dance by Milky Chance.
Carruthers said every year she thinks of a theme and offers a free photo session for someone who might not be able to otherwise afford it.
She realized she had never photographed a surprise engagement so she decided that's what she'd go with.
Carruthers posted the offer on her website that if anyone was proposing in the month of February to give her a call.
"It was awesome and fabulous," Carruthers said. "She was nervous before he came because he was arriving late. The whole thing was really really fun."
The photo shoot worked in her favour as well, Carruthers added.
"Whoever knew that a pro bono session would bring so much notice."
Cupples said he ended up photographing all of the clues.
When Gregg saw his photos she suggested they would be suitable for Reddit.
Agreeing, Cupples made himself an account and posted photos and a storyline, "just to share the news with their friends and family," he said.
"It caught a lot traction in the first three hours and by two or three days it had 150,000 views," Cupples said. "From there I was contacted by different news sites that do stories from viral things that go on Reddit."
He was also contacted by radio stations in the U.S., Prince George, Vancouver and Williams Lake for interviews.
"But there were very few people who actually contacted us by phone and yet we were featured in things like Cosmopolitan," Gregg said.
The two said they chuckled when they read some of the stories.
"'Oh you wouldn't imagine what this woman did,'" Cupples said was one of the headlines. "All our friends were contacting us to say we were famous."
It is anticipated that their story will be featured on NBC's Meredith Vieira Show on May 11, although they have yet to be personally contacted, Gregg said.
Gregg and Cupples dated for about a year in high school and then went their separate ways. Gregg moved to Esquimalt and graduated from high school there. Both of them had daughters with other partners.
They got back together and had a daughter together in September 2015.
He is a heavy duty equipment operator at Mount Polley Mine and she is home on maternity leave.
Gregg said her proposal was kind of a joke at first.
"We talked about marriage. We talked about how we'd prefer to elope and places we'd like to get married. It wasn't as if the idea was foreign to us."
During the last year she often chided him, saying he'd better get his act together or she was going to draw on her Irish heritage.
"February rolled around and I thought 'here we go," Gregg said.
Once she contacted Carruthers and knew she had a guitar player for the photo shoot, everything came together really quickly.
Cupples said he wanted to propose but was stalled trying to come up with something memorable.
"She got her proposal and I got my memorable," he smiled.
In the next while they will plan a wedding, possibly at a ranch in the Cariboo and the hope is to keep their wedding nice and simple, they said.
They could wait until the next Leap Year Day, but that's not until 2020, Cupples said.