Sam Maccarone and Jessica Burzichelli go way, way back: the pair met when they were 10 years old, and have been in love ever since. So Maccarone knew that when he finally popped the question to his longtime girlfriend, it had to be an event worthy of their love affair — and he didn’t disappoint.
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“I always knew I wanted her to have something that would last forever,” Maccarone says.
“And I knew no matter how I was going to do it I was going to have someone secretly there recording her reaction so we could have that forever.”
When the lovebirds met as fifth graders, Burzichelli says it was “a playground crush that evolved into true love.”
The New Jersey couple dated all through high school, and were even each others’ dates to prom.
In college, they went off to different schools, but stayed together despite the distance.
“In the end, I just think both of us realized we were meant for each other,” Burzichelli says.
Now both in their twenties and living in Hoboken, New Jersey, Maccarone decided he was ready to propose. But he wanted it to be extra special.
So Maccarone went to his musician cousin Matty Mac for help. His idea? To create a music video for his proposal.
Mac even wrote a song especially for the occasion. “I wanted to try and traverse the different stages of a relationship from start to finish,” he said.
With the new song done, Mac told the unsuspecting Burzichelli that he needed a couple to star in his new music video. Being huge supporters of their friend’s music for years, she told him that she and Maccarone would do it.
The video was shot by another close friend of theirs, filmmaker Domenick Cucinotta. Assuming this was just another collaboration with their friends, Burzichelli was none the wiser. According to her, “this was nothing out of the ordinary.”
After a day of filming around Philadelphia, the couple went to a restaurant for the final scene. Mac started playing the song he had written for the couple, dubbed “The Proposal”.
The oblivious Burzichelli got the surprise of her life when, after the last line of the song was played — “I’ve been hoping that you’ll marry me someday,” Maccarone got down on one knee and asked her to be his wife.
The bride-to-be says that she was both shocked and excited: “I’ve dreamed about this moment since we were little kids.”
More than the proposal, it was the couple’s love story that captured hearts all over the world. After all, how many people can say they ended up with their 10-year-old playground crush?
