Cindy Glogosh of Cleveland thought that her sisters, Barbara Sims and Allison Hill, and her mother, Susan Glogosh, were taking her to shop for wedding dresses on Dec. 28. She had already picked an engagement ring.​

 

Her family detoured to the Hotel Indigo in Houston. When she entered the lobby, hotel Sales Manager Brian Stonesifer greeted her and asked, “Are you Cindy?” After she identified herself, Stonesifer said, “Follow me.”

 

Violinist Heather Nielson-Corbett of Third Floor Strings, who stood next to Stonesifer, then began to play “Canon in D Major” by Johann Pachelbel. With the violinist serenading them through the lobby and down a corridor, the bride-to-be smiled and knew that an event was about to transpire that would transcend a shopping trip.

 

Glogosh was led, across a carpet of red rose petals, into a darkened room where she was asked to take a seat alone at a table draped in a white cloth and decorated in its center by a circle of red rose petals surrounding an inner ring of glowing white glass-encased votive candles. A bouquet of cut red roses, springing from a glass vase full of water, was the centerpiece.

 

Nielson-Corbett, clad in a black orchestra dress, sat in the corner of the dim room and continued her romantic medley, as the seated Glogosh, her face bathed in candlelight, her family members from Cleveland standing behind her, watched her betrothed U.S. Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Bill Kosirog culminate the hitherto unfinished pre-wedding ritual.

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But this was no ordinary proposal, for Kosirog was deployed to Camp Eggers in Kabul, Afghanistan, his sentiments projected from a Power Point presentation, punctuated by a photograph of the serviceman wearing fatigues and kneeling. The Chicago native was holding a ring, officially popping the question. It was after 10 a.m. in Texas and past 8 p.m. in Kabul.

Glogosh turned in her chair, looked right at a video camera that Sims held, and officially said “yes.”

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Kosirog deployed in September, and the couple has planned to get married, likely in Florida, in June, when the sailor would have a roughly two-week window in the U.S.

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Even the musician was impressed.

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“With all the weddings we’ve played, I don’t think we’ve ever played for a proposal,” Nielson-Corbett said. “This is the first proposal that I’ve personally done, and it was awesome.”

Kosirog hired The Heart Bandits, a Los Angeles-based marriage proposal and romantic event planner, to make his beloved feel special.

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“Her fiance, Bill, recently wanted her to go pick out a ring, and we went and picked out a ring,” Sims said, while Glogosh made a cell phone call to Kosirog. “I’d asked her, ’Did Bill actually propose?’ She said: ’No, he hasn’t really actually proposed yet. He just asked me to go pick out a ring,’ and I said, ’Oh, okay.’ So I thought that was kind of different. Then Bill kept on contacting me and saying: ’I want to propose to Cindy. I want to propose to Cindy. I’m overseas. I really don’t know how to do it.’ And then he contacted [The Heart Bandits] to help him propose to Cindy. I’ve been very secretive about this whole thing, trying to get her down here today to get him to propose. She’s very shy and quiet, and so she’s really shocked today about where we’re going and what we’re doing.”

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Building a bridge between South Asia and North America was a labor of love.

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“Planning Bill and Cindy’s proposal meant a lot to me because I am also a veteran, and I understand how hard it is to do something special for someone when you are so far away,” Michele Williamson, co-founder of The Heart Bandits, said in a written reply. “Because Bill was in Afghanistan, Cindy was in Houston, and we were in Los Angeles, it was a challenge to get all of the pieces in place, but when I told Bill it had all come together perfectly, his excitement made it all worth it.”

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Mission accomplished.

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“She was very surprised, and I knew she liked it,” Kosirog said from Kabul, after Cindy reached him on a signal that had to be occasionally re-established.

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His fiancée not only liked the surprise; she loved it.

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“It was very, very, very sweet and romantic, and he knows I don’t like surprises,” the gleefully astonished Glogosh said, following the couple’s personal conversation, the beginning of which was overshadowed by the moment. “I don’t even know what I said; the first thing. I said, ’You’re not supposed to do stuff like this,’ I think — something along those lines. Or, ’You did know what’s going on!’ I think that’s the first thing I said to him: ’You did know what’s going on! You lied to me. You knew what was going on.’”

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Paying attention to detail, Kosirog made an important point during the couple’s conversation.

“Actually, he said, ’You didn’t even answer the question though,’” Glogosh said. “And I said: ’But I did. Barbara recorded it. You’ll have to see it later.’ He already knows the answer.”

Glogosh recalled the date that she and Kosirog first met — a woman typically remembers everything — Dec. 4, 2008, when they were working out at a 24 Hour Fitness center. Dec. 28, 2010, has since become another unforgettable date between a 29-year-old man Glogosh characterized as “very, very sweet and loving, and very silly sometimes, but overall very sweet” and a 27-year-old woman Kosirog described, in his recorded proposal, as “caring,” “loving,” “compassionate” and “intelligent,” in a torrent of superlatives.

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The future bride’s family expressed joy about the impending nuptials. Sims shouted to Kosirog, while the cell phone was in the speaker mode: “You get romantic points, Bill. We love you.”