Happy Thursday, everyone! I hope you’re having a great week, and ICYMI… I’m excited to share the news that Tania and I are engaged! Check out my last post to read all about her beautiful proposal to me on the beach. And today – as promised – I’m sharing all the details of my proposal back to her!
Ever since Tania and I started talking about getting married, I knew I wanted to propose to her with a romantic picnic in a beautiful setting. When I started researching local picnic experiences earlier this year, I came across Makkink’s Flower Farm, and immediately knew they’d be perfect for what I was envisioning.
Located in the town of Tillsonburg in Oxford County, Makkink’s is a family-run flower farm that offers a variety of fun, interactive experiences for visitors to enjoy. The farm was founded by Marcel and Hilde Makkink, who immigrated to Canada from Holland 14 years ago. Hilde – who had started growing sunflowers on the property – began selling her lovely arrangements at the Tillsonburg Farmers Market, where she became known as “The Sunflower Lady”. Inspired by the support from the local community, Hilde began planting more and more varieties of flowers on the farm, and her business really began to take off. Today, Makkink’s has over 45 different species of flowers, from peonies to dahlias to snapdragons (and yes, they still have their famous sunflowers!)
A few years ago, Hilde and Marcel opened up their farm to the public and started offering a variety of fun experiences: from cut-your-own flowers sessions and flower arranging workshops to their Ladies Night Out and Date Night on the Farm experiences. I booked the Date Night on the Farm experience for my proposal to Tania, and it couldn’t have been more perfect!
The Date Night experience starts with a cut-your-own flower session. When Tania and I arrived at the farm in the late afternoon, we were greeted warmly by Hilde and her team, who provided us with a large pail and pair of clippers. We spent about 45 minutes wandering through the pretty flower fields and clipping our favourite blooms. We got some sunflowers (Tania’s favourite), snapdragons (mine), foxgloves, zinnias, and tons of others.
The pail holds approximately 25 stems, enough for a very generous arrangement. And if you’re not an expert flower arranger, fear not: you simply bring your pail back to the farm store, and the Makkink’s team will arrange it into a stunning bouquet for you.
After handing off our flowers to be arranged, it was time to pick up our picnic. The Date Night experience includes a charcuterie board for two, but I wanted an actual picnic basket to have something to hide Tania’s ring in, so Hilde kindly substituted that for me at no extra charge (the farm also offers picnics with the cut-your-own flowers experience.) The picnic comes in the cutest wicker basket (blanket included) and contains charcuterie, fresh fruits and veggies, two croissants with butter and jam, two cookies and two (non-alcoholic) drinks of your choice. You’re then free to choose any spot you like in the flower fields to enjoy your supper! Once Tania and I had found the perfect spot, we opened up the baskets and I poured us a couple of glasses of wine. (Note that wine is not included in the experience, but my best friend Victoria – who helped me orchestrate the whole thing – had arrived at the farm before us, and given Hilde the bottle of wine and ring to place in one of the baskets.)
After enjoying some wine and food, I asked Tania to grab the bag of cookies from the picnic basket to see which flavours we got. And lo and behold… inside was the ring! Tania told me later she’d known something was up when we sat down for the picnic, but seeing that ring box in the cookie bag was a total shock for her because she had no idea how it had gotten in there. The incredulous look on her face as she asked “how’d you do that!?” is one I’ll remember forever. (Spoiler alert: she said yes! And how funny is it that we both proposed to each other with cookies!? I guess it was meant to be.) The whole time, Victoria was hidden in the rows of flowers behind us, snapping photos. I love that she was able to capture these beautiful candid moments, which are some of my favourite photos ever!
After the proposal, Victoria came out of hiding, and Hilde came by to check on us and see how everything went. Then I finally got to tell Tania the whole story – how I’d been emailing back and forth with Hilde for months to plan the entire evening, although we both pretended we’d never met when we arrived at the farm (in addition to being a talented flower farmer, she’s also a great actress!) I still can’t believe I pulled it off without accidentally spilling any of the details to Tania – we’re both bad secret-keepers, and this one was especially hard to keep quiet!
After enjoying our picnic supper (I’d been too nervous to actually eat before!) we settled in for the third and final part of the Date Night experience: toasting s’mores around our private firepit. Hilde stopped by to light the fire for us, and dropped off some adorable s’mores kits with marshmallows and chocolate concerto cookies. We stayed until 9 o’clock, watching the sun set and celebrating with s’mores and wine by the fire.
Before heading out, we went back inside the farm store to pick up our bouquet, which had now been expertly arranged and wrapped by the Makkink’s team. The flowers stayed fresh and lovely in our dining room for a whole week, a perfect reminder of a perfect evening.
My experience with Makkink’s Flower Farm was top-notch, and I honestly can’t say enough good things about them! Hilde and her team are incredible, and planned with me months in advance to make every detail of the evening perfect. They truly went above and beyond! Whether you’re planning a proposal, celebrating an anniversary or just looking for a unique date idea, I highly recommend the Date Night at the Flower Farm experience. Makkink’s only has three private firepits and they’re spread out very far from one another, ensuring your experience will be peaceful, secluded and romantic. We really felt like we had the farm all to ourselves! Click here to book the Date Night experience, or browse through the Makkink’s website to learn about some of the other experiences they offer.
I owe a huge thank you to everyone who helped make this evening perfect: Hilde for her amazing hospitality, Victoria for being the best “accomplice” a girl could ask for, Kat Wilkinson of Modern Love Jewellery for designing Tania’s dream ring, and most of all, my beautiful fiancée Tania for saying yes to a lifetime with me – I couldn’t be luckier! And of course, a big thank you to YOU all for reading along and sharing in my joy with me. I truly appreciate your readership so much!
And as if all this engagement talk wasn’t exciting enough, I’m also super excited for my next post because I’m going to be taking you on a virtual tour of… drumroll please… a GOAT FARM! (Seriously y’all, these last few weeks have been some of the best ever.) So stay tuned… I’ll be baaa-ck soon 😉
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