A Pennsylvania CEO recreated a scene from “The Wedding Singer” and proposed to his girlfriend on a plane.
Sam Riber , 34, and his fiancé Lissy Alden , 37, traveled to Mexico for Lissy’s birthday and Sam surprised her with a performance that ended with him getting down on one knee Kneel down.
Rieber and Alden are both movie buffs, so when Sam decided to propose in October 2024, he knew he wanted to recreate a scene from the 1998 Adam Sandler classic.
Lieber, whose job specializes in physical fitness, managed to sneak a prop guitar onto the plane without Alden noticing and worked with the flight attendants to create a code to pull off the surprise.
On Christmas Eve, midway through their flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Mexico City, Lieber sang Alden songs from the movie and proposed to her, receiving an almighty “Yes!” .
“This is a very special moment,” Rieb said. I can hardly believe it all worked out. “
The couple met at a Shabbat dinner in February 2024 less than a year ago and had an immediate connection.
Eight months later, Lieber decided to propose and began planning the proposal.
Lieber had been a fan of the movie “The Wedding Singer,” and he knew he wanted to propose like Adam Sandler’s Robbie, who serenades his love Julia (Drew Barrymore) midway through the movie with the song “Growing Old with You”. – Flight suggestions.
“Lissie had never seen it, so I had to find a way to introduce it to her without giving anything away,” Lieber said. “I casually suggested a movie night. She was all for it, and luckily she loved the movie as much as I did.
“We’ve been singing versions of the song to each other ever since, as we often quote or act out movies to entertain each other, but she had no idea of my wider plans.”
Lieber had the support of the flight attendants who helped him organize the perfect proposal.
“I’m lucky to have the support of the flight attendants, especially Teri Ramirez, who you can see helping me with the public address system,” Rieber added. “The team went out of their way to help and even introduced our code word ‘juice’ so I knew when to go get the guitar they had hidden for me.”
“I almost didn’t go [to] Shabbat dinner in February because I was tired but my mom told me I needed to eat, and I’m so glad I went,” said Alden, owner of MYNDY, a provider of mental and organizational fitness.
“We’d been on many dates before, so when we both felt like this was really the right thing, we didn’t want to wait.”
“While I had no idea he was going to propose on the spot, we had discussed the future, so it wasn’t completely unexpected,” Alden said. “At first I thought it was because it was my birthday and he had done some celebratory things like moving us to first class. But when he got down on one knee, I realized what was happening What a joy.”
“This is definitely the pinnacle moment of life.”
The two are enjoying their engagement and have not yet made any concrete plans for their upcoming wedding.