- Hey guys, I'm Lee Loechler.
Better known to the internet
as the Sleeping Beauty Proposal guy.
- Hi, I'm Sthuthi.
I'm the Sleeping Beauty Proposal girl.
- My name is Kayla Coombs.
I did the artwork for the "Sleeping Beauty Proposal".
- And this is that story.
- This is that story.
- And I'm actually Sleeping Beauty. (laughs)
(keyboard typing)
- So Sthuthi and I met our freshmen year of high school.
She was taking a dance class at the time,
and at the end of the year
all the dance classes have their final performance
and I was taking a stage craft class at the time.
- Lee did all the tech for it.
I thought he was kind of a weird guy in the corner,
because he would always wear all black
and just look really sad.
I knew he was someone special.
- The final night of the show
somebody in the sound booth just like cranked the music
and all the dancers from all the classes
just ran on the stage and just started dancing,
just letting loose.
Somehow I got dragged out of the wings onto stage,
in the spotlight and somehow I wound up
dancing with Sthuthi.
And naturally I was like "Well, I gotta do something here."
And somebody had given her a red rose.
I put it in my teeth and I started
pretending like we were tangoing.
Which at the time seemed like a good idea.
- Two seconds later realized there thorns in that rose.
- It was such a special and memorable moment
that if you look carefully at the video
you'll see that in that frame where we're dancing together
I actually, my character has a little rose in his mouth
as an homage to that moment.
Yeah, it's making me tear up.
Edit that part out.
- And that's actually truly how we met and started dating.
- So I guess that our story begins a few years back
and a friend of mine told me that he was thinking about
proposing to his then girlfriend.
And we were just sort of sitting there talking
about how he might do it.
The idea popped into my head pretty much fully formed.
He's sitting there with his significant other
and their watching her favorite movie.
And all of a sudden in a key scene,
like green screen composited into the shot is him.
And just a moment for her would be like feels kinda magical,
it's like cognitive dissonance
"what are you doing there?"
And then it would Segway to a real life proposal
with him doing a little fake toss
and then in real life catching it
and getting down on one knee.
It's like magical being animated into your favorite movie.
And he thought about it and he's like you know honestly
that doesn't feel like it would be right for us.
And so I sort of filed that idea away for later,
thinking maybe there,
you know it seemed like there was something there.
Maybe I could get some mileage out of it yet.
Fast forward few years down the road.
Sthuthi and I were dating.
We'd started having conversations
about taking the next step in our relationship.
My head of course went to, how am I gonna do it?
Eventually I sort of resurfaced that idea.
What if I put myself into her favorite movie
and popped the question that way.
The problem was her favorite movie is "Sleeping Beauty",
which is animated.
I got a copy of "Sleeping Beauty"
and I just sorted of scrubbing through it
'cause I'd never seen it.
I got to the end where Prince Phillip comes in,
kneels down, kisses Aurora,
and like breaks the spell.
And I noticed that the whole scene was pretty static
and it made me think that maybe
I didn't need to be an animator,
maybe I just needed an illustrator.
It had to be something that could be seamless
with Disney level animation.
Which is like, that's as good as it gets.
I just wound up going on Instagram,
and using different hashtags
I could kind of discover artists
who were posting certain styles.
I eventually made my way to Kayla Coombs.
- I thought what have I gotten myself into here,
this is too much.
Lee sent me an email just out of the blue.
"Would you be available or willing to do some artwork
to help me propose to my girlfriend?"
We had a chat and he kind of told me the whole vision
and I was like "Wow, this guy's got high hopes,
this is gonna be special if we can pull it off."
- Kayla Coombs is an Australian illustrator.
One of her talents is she can emulate
that kind of classic Disney style.
- Yeah, it's weird.
Definitely did not see this coming.
I had no idea.
- And when I found my way to her Instagram page
and started scrolling through I just remembered
that being the moment where I thought
"This could actually work."
So I was very excited to just do this proposal
in the comfort of our home.
Presented to my friend.
He's like "No man. Have you never met a woman?
Friends and family should be there,
it should be someplace beautiful."
And both of our heads went to this
local independent movie theater
called Coolidge Corner Theater.
It's a venue that holds of lot of significance to me,
and Sthuthi and I have gone and seen movies there.
- I think this shows how ingenious Lee is.
He basically had to figure out a way
not to seem so weird that he was inviting me
to a theater full of my friends and family.
So he enlisted my Mom.
- Can I give you something to send her
that will invite her to the screening.
And she said "Yeah, I'm down."
- And then my Mom had emailed me this,
and said "Oh I know how much you love "Sleeping Beauty"
so I bought all of us tickets.
If Lee is available he can come too."
So then a week later I had forwarded this email to Lee
and said "Oh FYI we have to go see this movie
with my family. It's like one of my favorites."
And he's like "Oh okay, well if I'm getting invited
to my own proposal I think I must be doing
a pretty good job." (laughs)
- (laughs)
(gentle orchestral music)
- There were a lot of logistics to be managed.
The idea we had then was maybe we
stick all the friends and family,
we push them to the back.
And then lets get some people that she doesn't know
to sort of fill those seats right around her
to kind of distract her from the friends and family.
We had put this on Reddit, you know said
"Hey I'm looking for-" I think I used the words
"I'm looking for random internet strangers to help
fill a theater so I can surprise propose to my girlfriend."
- These kids back behind me were dressed up
and I thought they came here for "Sleeping Beauty."
And I was like "oh god, they're not gonna
be able to see "Sleeping Beauty.""
(audience cheers)
- I don't know, like it happened
and like it wasn't like really making sense.
I just like because so many emotions were going through,
like was really special.
- That's as good as it gets.
- The best part is I get to spend the rest of my life
with Lee which is always something that
is really what brings a smile to my face.
- To me one of the most mind boggling parts
of all of this has been seeing that not only have people
in America enjoyed watching this but across the globe.
I think we all sort of suspect deep down
that everyone around us sort of wants the same things.
We all appreciate love, we all appreciate respect.
This kinda sounds super cheesy
but like we're not that different.
Like no matter where we are on the planet,
the fact that this resonated so widely
really reaffirmed that belief that I've always had.
(lighthearted music)