“My Sister Got Engaged This Weekend And I Dressed As A Bush In The Wilderness To Capture The Moment”

What would you do if your sister’s soulmate would ask you for help organizing his proposal? Well, Therese Merkel dressed herself as a bush. And she took it really seriously, too.

Of course, Therese did it not to just creep on the two. Being the family videographer, she also captured the sweet moment, which was carefully planned by the loving husband-to-be.

Image credits: theresemerkel

“I live in Madison WI, and do project management, Rachel lives in Milwaukee, WI but is a traveling nurse so she’s always moving around, and Andrew is from Greenbay, WI doing marketing and sales,” Therese told Bored Panda.”The engagement took place at Picnic Point in Madison— Andrew called to get special permission to deck it out with Rachel’s favorite flowers (sunflowers) and lanterns. We used going to the Wisconsin Badger football game as a mechanism to get her to Madison.”

Therese shared the pics on Twitter where they instantly went viral

Image credits: theresemerkel

However, the mission was anything but spontaneous. “Andrew and I started [talking about it] a month prior,” Therese explained. “We had an hour long phone call where he 1) asked for my approval to be wed (me and my sister are incredibly close, so I’m like the second string of parents he has to go though, haha, we didn’t make it easy) and then 2) come up with something great for this huge moment. We tossed some ideas back and forth and had the basics down like location and that I had to somehow be there videotaping it.”

“We got together a week prior to walk the trail and actually come up with the plan. We tossed some re-donk-u-lous ideas— around, like, maybe we should pretend I’m injured and have to call the ambulance and then Andrew would turn around instead of the medic and propose— we thought that was too aggressive. But then I was like ‘What if I was a bush.’ We geeked and Andrew is the one who really ran with it… I got this text later that night… it was then real.”

During the preparation phase, Therese even had to change his name to Andrea so Rachel wouldn’t be suspect that she was texting him. “The ninja part is because he won American Ninja Warrior once which is just a side nugget fun fact.”

Image credits: theresemerkel

Therese said her family is kinda obsessed with him. But in a totally good way. “He’s everything they have been praying for in a future spouse for my sis. Andrew and I got pretty close when we were planning the engagement and when I saw how far he was willing to go to make the day perfect, and get me and the family so involved, it made me like him even more!”

Image credits: theresemerkel

“So my role in the engagement was to be there for her, not only to celebrate but also hype up her ring. It was very thicc. But apart from being in the special moment, I taped the whole thing aka despite popular belief, I actually didn’t take any pics, those were done by Taylor and from a different hiding spot.”

Image credits: theresemerkel

“So while I was hiding, I had the perfect view to the whole thing— Andrew knew I was hiding and wasn’t even sure I was there when he walked down— thats how baller this suit was. He wrote her a loving poem, and then got down on one knee.. well at least tried, because the ring got stuck in his pocket during attempt 1… which you can see him struggling to get out here:”

Image credits: theresemerkel

“She said yes during attempt 2.”

Image credits: theresemerkel

“I was in the bushes for about minutes, but after Taylor spilled the beans that Rachel and Andrew weren’t alone, I revealed my organic looking self by chanting ‘SHE SAID YES, SHE SAID YES.’ Rachel was very confused and I was legit crying tears of joy because of how special the whole event was. I wore the suit the full mile hike back, and every time I passed people, used a man’s voice to say ‘I’M A BUSH’ similar to Groot, but with more aggression. I was laughing my buns off. And yes, I did have Rachel give me a tick check when we got back to my place.”

Image credits: theresemerkel

Therese added that although the bush thing is what’s getting the hype, people shouldn’t forget the ‘rzn for the szn,’ Andrew’s love for her sister. “The bush was one of the 4932 things Andrew did to make the day super awesome and family oriented. Everything and everyone (both of our immediate fams were gathered for a surprise after party) involved in that day were there to shower love on these two and thank God for bringing them together. Maybe it’s not even the fact that I was a bush that went viral… it may just be the warmth people feel when they know how far a sister duo will go for each other .”