World Premiere: A Marriage Proposal in Space

Want to say “I love you” in space for $7,000?

On February 14, 2013, a guy named Sebastian, a 35-year-old Frenchman, will propose to his girlfriend by hiring a company to send a giant helium balloon up to an altitude of 18 miles, with the message, “Vanessa, will you marry me?”

The unmanned balloon/space flight will be filmed from the launch to the arrival of the message of love in the stratosphere.

To perform this task, Sebastian hired the French company ApoteoSurprise, a “romance expert specialized in planning spectacular marriage proposals in Paris, the City of Love,” and is paying the company about $7,000 (U.S.) for the video tape of the proposal.

The unmanned giant helium-filled balloon will be equipped with video recording devices filming Sebastian’s message and the surrounding scenery during the flight, and, when the balloon reaches an altitude of 18 miles, the last footage will be shot with the blue planet in the background. The balloon will blow up, a parachute will open, and the video equipment will (hopefully) fall back to earth. The footage will be recovered (from who knows where?) and a montage will be edited, so the lucky Sebastian can show the film to Vanessa, perhaps the first woman to receive a proposal filmed in space.

The Reporter will try to keep you posted on whether Vanessa consents to the marriage, but we admit to some fear that Vanessa, who might think that someone so easily willing to part with $7,000 to film an outer space proposal when a simple dinner and a direct popping of the question in perhaps the world’s most romantic city, Paris, would have been about $6,800 cheaper.

For similarly-minded romantics with money to burn, you too can purchase the “Say I love you in Space” plan or choose from 30 other marriage proposals available on the ApoteoSurprise’s website www.proposeinparis.-com, including a Cinderella's carriage appearing at Moulin Rouge with a magical shoe, an airplane displaying the proposal message on its wings while flying over Notre Dame, and even a shower of 1,000 red roses fully covering a yacht during a VIP dinner-cruise on the Seine River.

Prices range from about $800 for a limousine tour with a personalized message appearing on a giant LED screen at the Eiffel Tower to $22,000 for a private aerial patrol drawing a white smoke heart in the Parisian sky.

In seven years, more than 1,000 men, coming from all over the world, called on ApoteoSurprise to express their love in Paris.