What does every good love story need? Two people, with something drawing them together but something, or someone, pulling them apart. And of course, the happily ever after. What about a good geocaching love story? Two geocachers, drawn together by geocaching, but unable to be together, until eventually nothing stands in their way and they can log a find and have their happily ever after.

On 12^th April, German geocachers reality666 and annimiles took the next big step in their happily-ever-after at GC43, Europe’s First, when reality666 popped the question to annimiles after exactly two years of dating.

The couple first met at a geocaching event – reality666’s monthly Stammtisch event, on 1^st July 2012. At that time, they were both in relationships and never imagined that they would become a couple. Skip forward to April 2014, when they were both involved in planning the Big Äppel mega event in Frankfurt, and they finally ‘found it’!

How much planning went in to the proposal? “A lot,” reality666 tells me. His first idea was to propose at their favourite band’s concert but when their management didn’t respond to his requests, he decided to propose at GC43 instead. He booked the trip to Dublin in January this year but didn’t tell annimiles anything until the night before, when he told her to, “pack a cabin baggage sized suitcase for just one night!” He didn’t reveal their destination until they arrived at the airport. When he revealed the trip to Dublin, he said the purpose was for him to find his 12,000th cache on 12th April at Europe’s oldest cache.

Annimiles tells me she did have suspicions about a proposal on the day (it was their anniversary after all!), but thought it might happen, “in the evening, as he mentioned that I should take some special clothes for the evening.”

As for the proposal itself, reality666 waited until they had found the cache and logged it, before taking annimiles in his arms and telling her:

Just like this cache survived all the ups and downs of the hobby, I would love to walk through all the ups and downs in life together with you.

And, of course, her answer was a resounding YES! The couple have already set a date – 1st July 2017, exactly 5 years to the day since they first met. They have told me that, naturally, geocaching will feature in their wedding – the theme will be ‘Searched and Found – Connected in Love.’ As for the honeymoon, a trip to Groundspeak HQ in Seattle is on the cards, and maybe even a trip to the A.P.E. cache in Brazil.

We all occasionally find things out of the ordinary while geocaching, but sometimes it seems, you might just find something really great. Many congratulations to the happy couple, and very best wishes for the future.

Have you found something, or someone, special while geocaching? Let me know in the comments!

Happy caching!

Sarah

© 2016 | Sarah Murphy | All Rights Reserved

Many thanks to Robert and Annika for telling me their story and sharing their photos