Italian man proposes marriage over supermarket checkout mic

Who knew that grocery shopping could be so romantic? An Italian man in Venice proposed to his girlfriend at a grocery store this week, asking her to marry him over the checkout counter’s microphone.

“My love, I wanted to ask you something, in front of everyone,” Salvatore Costarelli is seen saying into a microphone, in a video published on the website of the Corriere del Veneto newspaper.

“I love you, you’re my life, and I want to ask you, will you marry me?” he adds.

Someone off-camera begins clapping and the camera pans to the detergent aisle where a woman, Tiziana Famao, is seen leaning over her cart in surprise before wheeling it out bashfully.

The couple hug next to the frozen vegetables, a ring is unearthed from Costarelli’s pocket and placed on Famao’s finger, which is accompanied by laughter and applause from the cashiers.

“When I heard those words I didn’t understand anything any more,” Famao told the newspaper, calling her new fiance “a very shy person” ordinarily.

The happy couple, cashiers and other shoppers later toasted with a bottle that had been chilling in the supermarket’s refrigerator, awaiting the big moment at the Despar supermarket in Mira outside Venice.

Costarelli said he had planned days in advance.

“I had also thought of the classic proposal in a gondola,” said Costarelli. “But then I chose the supermarket... to make her understand how much I care about her.”

“I thought that a gesture like that she won’t forget for the rest of her life.”

The wedding is planned for December, in Sicily.

• Europe