The setting couldn’t have been more perfect. Standing on the side of a cruise ship, their hands interlocked and looking out to Australia’s stunning Great Barrier Reef as the sun rose, Jordan Gledhill was in the middle of asking her girlfriend, More FM radio presenter Lana Searle, to marry her.
Well, until an elderly lady in a Bruce Springsteen T-shirt doing her morning cardio around the boat interrupted to inform the gorgeous couple the reason the ship was so far from land was to allow the passengers to go to the casino.
“We knew she had another lap in her, so Jordan did the rest pretty quick!” Lana (30) laughs wryly.
The end result was almost perfect, but Jordan (24) reveals her proposal plan – which she’d been working on for six months – turned to custard almost as soon as the pair, who had been dating for just over two years, stepped onto the boat.
“It turned out to be a comedy of errors,” she tells, shaking her head. “We’d planned to go on this cruise with my family for months, and I knew I wanted to propose then because Lana loves boats.”
“I really do,” nods Lana. “You will not find a 30-year-old female who is as obsessed as me.”
Continues Jordan, “I wanted to do it as soon as we got on there, to get it out of the way, but I got sick for four days – and then Lana got sick!”
Further complicating Jordan’s plan was her inability to figure out when sunrise would be each day, a vital part of her grand plan. After trying – and failing – to rise in time for a couple of days, Lana began to think something was amiss.
“She was getting so grumpy about missing the sunrise – and we’re not let’s-get-up-and-watch-the-sun people,” reveals Lana.
“And she’d been acting weird – hiding her phone from me, which I know now was because her friends were texting her to ask if she’d popped the question yet – and a few other things. I honestly thought I was about to get dumped!”
The pair have sealed their engagement with beautiful diamond rings.
But, finally, everything came together for a very nervous Jordan who, despite almost dropping the gorgeous Michael Hill ring over the side of the boat as she pulled it out of her pocket, managed to utter, “Will you marry me?” to a surprised – and relieved – Lana.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she says with a grin. “Of course I said yes straight away!”
Lana and Jordan’s two-year relationship has been a whirlwind, the pair admit, after they became closer while hanging out with the same group of friends.
“I had a dream about her, so I decided to message her and tell her about it, and after that, we met up,” tells Jordan.
“I can’t even remember what the dream was about, but I featured, so that’s okay!” laughs Lana.
It was after a few months that the couple began to realise they’d stumbled on what they call “the real deal”, much to Lana’s surprise.
Jordan popped the question on the “love boat”.
“I’d been single for 10 freaking years,” she exclaims.
“I always told myself that I didn’t want to muck around again. I stayed off all those stupid dating apps because I knew nothing would come of them, and I was having such a good time being single and not caring. I did know that when I did commit, I wanted it to be the real thing. And then the two of us got together.”
“We just knew,” adds Jordan.
The duo are similar in some ways, different in others – Lana loves watching the rugby, while Jordan can’t think of anything worse, and Jordan’s much more of a girly-girl than Lana – but both love adventures and binge-watching a good TV series, as well as catching up with their huge group of friends, who all, of course, knew about the proposal ahead of time, including Lana’s radio co-host Jason Gunn.
Lana’s radio co-host Jason will be there when she ties the knot.
“He’ll definitely be at the wedding,” grins Lana. “I’m not sure what I’ll make him do yet – but we always get asked to do things like MC weddings, because of our jobs. So I might even do him a favour and let him sit down!”
Planning is still in its infancy – with big families to consider, the devil will definitely be in the detail! But until the day they say ‘I do’, Lana and Jordan just plan to enjoy being engaged to one another.
“With her, everything is always so happy and so much fun – that’s why I love her,” confides Jordan.
“And with her, she’s a ray of sunshine,” adds Lana. “She is simply the most supportive, funny, beautiful partner I could ever ask for. She’s always there and always so happy. I’m so lucky. It’s the best thing ever.”
