Marriage proposal made at IMAX

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By Stephanie De Pasquale | Friday, November 28, 2008 10:30 PM CST | () comments

Emily Cosgrave has documented everything in photographs.

So when it came time for A.J. Muehling, her high school sweetheart and boyfriend of six years, to figure out a way to propose marriage, he used her photos to create a DVD slideshow of their lives together.

But to make the moment even more special, Muehling arranged for the DVD to be played on the IMAX screen Friday night at the Putnam Museum in Davenport.

“I’ve always wanted to do something big, so what’s bigger than the IMAX screen,” he said.

Technical difficulties prevented the entire 1,000-picture slideshow from playing. So Muehling said to Cosgrave, “Who really needs a slideshow anyway? I have something very important to ask you.”

Then he got down on one knee and popped the big question. She said yes.

Cosgrave had no idea that the proposal was coming. “I think it was perfect,” said Cosgrave, who took more than 2,000 photos of the couple’s trip to Europe. “And he picked some embarrassing ones.”

Muehling maintains the IMAX theatre is the site of their first date.

But Cosgrave considers it to be a school sporting event they attended together before they started dating. Regardless, the trip to the IMAX was very early on in their dating relationship.

Cosgrave, originally from Colona, Ill., and Muehling, originally from East Moline, met when they were freshmen in high school but didn’t start to date until they were seniors. Cosgrave then headed to college at Drake University in Des Moines, while Muehling went to Bradley University in Peoria, Ill.

The couple moved to Peoria after school.

Since graduating Cosgrave’s large family has been encouraging Muehling to pop the

question.

“They have been harassing me for the past couple of years now,” Muehling said. “They were actually drafting a letter to kick me out of family events.”

Cosgrave’s aunts and uncles actually did draft another such letter to encourage the last of their siblings’ significant other to propose, so he knew they were serious.

Fittingly, Cosgrave’s whole family was in on the proposal. Muehling asked her father for permission last Sunday. He borrowed one of her mother’s rings that fit Cosgrave’s finger in order to get the correct ring size without her knowing about it.

Twenty family members joined them for the proposal Friday to take pictures so Cosgrave will have something to remember the moment by.

Stephanie De Pasquale can be contacted at (563) 333-2639 or sdepasquale@qctimes.com.

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