Say I Love You in space!
You read right, say “Will you marry me?” or “Heaven knows how much I love you” way up there in the stratosphere. Let your imagination run wild in crafting your love message, then shut it off to savor the reality of flaunting your feelings, literally, in outer space.
A French event planner, specializing in elaborate and unique marriage proposal settings in Paris, launches Thursday, Feb. 14, the world’s first love-propositioning, better-than-postcard scene some 12 to 24 miles above Planet Earth.
Based in this town just less than 20 miles east of the City of Light, ApoteoSurprise is a specialty company founded by Parisian entrepreneur Nicolas Garreau, whose sole mission is to help men, traveling to Paris for a romantic getaway, amaze their dearest one in a most memorable way.
For the debut launch next Thursday, Sebastian, a 35-year-old French romantic, would be paying ApoteoSurprise €4999 ($6,760) to become the first earthling to propose to his girlfriend, Vanessa -- in space -- at an altitude of about 19 miles (30 kilometers). The space flight will be entirely filmed, from the launch to the arrival of the message of love in the stratosphere. Here’s how it will play out.
On V-Day, the picture of Sebastian and Vanessa and the most romantic question he could ever pop during their courtship -- “Vanessa, will you marry me?” -- is attached to a giant helium-filled balloon and released by professionals operating in an undisclosed space exploration area. The dirigible is sent up in the sky with a video recording equipment that films the message and the surrounding scenery during the entire flight.
er two to three hours, the message and balloon messenger reach an altitude of about 98,400 feet, and the last footage is shot with the Blue Planet in the background. The balloon then blows up, a parachute opens, and the video equipment falls back to Earth. The footage is then recovered and edited, and the final product in DVD is sent to Sebastian for viewing together with his Vanessa, by then the first woman ever to receive a man’s penultimate declaration of love 19 miles into space.
The “Say I Love You in Space” package is ApoteoSurprise’s newest, and by far most outrageous, addition to a catalog of 30 ‘only-in-Paris’ stagings of love and romance. The choices include Cinderella's carriage appearing at Moulin Rouge with a magical shoe, limousine tour with a personalized message appearing on a giant LED screen at the Eiffel Tower, airplane displaying the proposal message on its wings while flying over Notre Dame, shower of 1000 red roses that fully cover a yacht during a VIP dinner-cruise on Seine River (France’s most storied and important river), and private aerial patrol drawing a white heart-shaped smoke in the Parisian sky, to name a few.
“I’ve had a couple of Filipino clients,” Garreau said to FilAm Star by email. “If I remember right, they ordered my best-selling package, the ‘Say I Love You in a Limousine.’ Here, a stretched limo takes the champagne-toasting couple on a cruise through the premier districts of Paris …. Notre Dame, Louvre, Opera, Vendome, Concorde, Champs-Elysees. The limo then stops at Eiffel Tower, and the monument sparkles at that precise moment. Then in an instant, LEDs display an ultra-bright message of love on a panoramic screen inside the limo.”
But clearly, its universality is what should make the Space package a best-seller, too. Lovers the world over need not travel to Paris, or even leave the comfort of their homes. They just go online at ApoteoSurprise’s website to order and pay for the package.
According to Garreau, it’s the same m.o. for the Romeos and Juliets in the Bay Area, or anywhere in the United States, who want to express their love in a most highfalutin manner and form: the system is launched somewhere, videocam retrieved after falling from space, footage put through postproduction, and the final high-definition movie spectacle delivered to the client’s designated address.
“The Space package is for everyone living anywhere in the world, but for lovers who want to make their deepest feelings known in the City of Romance …. come to Paris and see me,” said the love-messaging guru.
