Seven years ago, Steve Kawalit was checking his Facebook to catch up with friends when he saw a pretty girl on his Feed. He “poked” the stranger named Nafis Joon on the social network. He used the cryptic feature without knowing it would soon change his life.
The two started chatting and agreed to meet up. They soon became a couple and have been together for the past six years. And again with the help of Facebook, the Toronto-based couple is now engaged.
Joon thought that his boyfriend was offered a private tour at the headquarters of Facebook in Menlo Park, California. They made the trip that 32-year-old Kawalit said was a prize.
Digital marketing manager Kawalit had been conniving with some Facebook employees who were gracious enough to join in the proposal. Kawalit and the unnamed employees have been in contact the past few months.
On Monday, June 23, as they where were going on with the tour at the Hacker Square and while posting for a photo, the photographer, a Facebook employee, asked her to turn around.
To her surprise, she saw a blue screen with the words, “Nafis, will you marry me”?” in bold white letters.
She screamed and the people started to clap. Steve Kawalit then got down on his knee to show her the ring.
"Of course! Aw, yeah," Nafis replied.
It was already a special moment but they were amazed some more when Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and CEO Mark Zuckerberg approached them and extended their congratulations.
"It's like a dream. To think that a 2004 project in a Harvard dorm room would have such a large impact on our lives is crazy. Facebook is essential to our story so I thought it was only fitting that we open a new chapter of our lives with Mark and Sheryl's blessings," Kawalit shared with Mashable last Thursday.
Joon posted the surprise marriage proposal video on Facebook last Thursday.
“What I thought was a private tour inside Facebook’s Headquarters in Menlo Park, was actually an elaborate scheme. Steve, with the help of some Facebook employees, turned Hacker Square into my own surprise proposal!! You got me good Kawalit…and now you got me for life.” wrote the 31-yeard-old Nafis on her Facebook wall.
It was indeed an elaborate scheme that was successful. It was sweet and geeky at the same time.
"There is no way we would have ever met if it wasn't for Facebook," Joon said in her video.
