Halloween is typically attributed to spooky fun, but who says it can’t be a day for love as well? Math teacher Eric Geiger proposed to his then-girlfriend Brittany Samojedny on Halloween. 

If not obvious by the bright smiles on their faces, she said yes. 

Choosing Halloween for the proposal was not random– Geiger chose the day with thoughtful consideration. 

“[Samojedny] absolutely loves Halloween,” Geiger said.

Samojedny values tradition, so she wanted Geiger to ask her father for permission to marry. Since Samojedny’s father lives on the Eastside of Michigan, it was hard for Geiger to find a good time to talk with him without making it obvious that he was planning to propose. He strategically planned a good time to ask him: when Samojedny was distracted.

“If I just drove out there on a random day, it would be really suspicious,” Geiger said. “I ended up pulling [Samojedny’s father] to the side at another friend’s wedding that we were both at, and I asked him when Brittany was distracted.”

To learn and prepare for the proposal, Geiger took some advice from his friends, who shared their own proposal experiences.

“I’m the last of my friend group to get married so each of them have already proposed and I heard their story,” Geiger said. 

Samojedny wanted to dress up and hand out candy on the front lawn with Geiger during trick-or-treating time on Halloween Day. Of course, Geiger agreed to these Halloween plans.

“I rushed home from school to start getting ready because we both did makeup on our faces,” Geiger said. “I was pretty nervous the whole time. I had to make sure my makeup wasn’t bad and all of that.”

Samojedny does circus aero performances, so she would also perform cool tricks on the lawn for the passersby. They set up the apparatus, consisting of a suspended hula hoop, in the front yard. As the night went on, Samojedny didn’t have a clue of the surprise that was to come. 

“We were just hanging out,” Geiger said. “A couple of friends were there.”

Sara Gadwa, one of Geiger’s fellow math teachers at Huron, was among the couple of friends present.

“Ms. Gadwa came,” Geiger said, “which wasn’t weird. But I invited one of [Gadwa’s] pretty close friends under the guise of like ‘oh, they couldn’t pass out candy in their neighborhood, so why don’t [they] just come hang out?’”

Geiger was careful to not let the proposal plan slip at all. However, Samojedny did find it suspicious that there were more friends than typically expected at their house on Halloween. 

“[Samojedny thought] it was a little weird that there were four or five people handing out candy at our house,” Geiger said. “[She was] suspicious that there were so many people there.”

Geiger knew the time was getting close when it got dark outside and they started taking down the aero tricks set-up. 

“I definitely had butterflies in my stomach,” Geiger said. 

To initiate the beginning of his plan, Geiger asked Samojedny to take a picture together. Gadwa and one of their other friends set up to take pictures. Geiger was initially going to propose when Samojedny got into a backbend pose on the suspended hula hoop -the one shown in the picture- but then he got too nervous and proposed before she got in position.

 “Going in you always have that perfect movie-like idea in your head of like – you’re gonna say the perfect line, all the lights are gonna be perfect,” Geiger said. “And it never quite is that. But it’s pretty close.”