Last month while on holiday in Scotland, a Norquay woman received a surprise marriage proposal at a location that is very special to her fiancé.
It was on January 31, 1946 that Bob Abbott of Norquay, who had been a Canadian soldier serving during the Second World War, married Comelia (Millie) McAndie at St. Ninian’s Church in Grange, Scotland.
In the wedding party, the bride’s sister, Margaret Grey, was the bridesmaid, while a friend, the late Tom Farquhar, was the best man, and June Grey, another relative of the bride, was the flower girl.
Seventy years later, the couple’s great-grandson Dylan Abbott of Norquay was on vacation in Scotland with his fiancée Brianne Fialkowski, also of Norquay.
On September 25, at the site of Bob and Millie’s wedding, and while Margaret Grey’s great-granddaughter, Caddie Findlay, 11, played the bagpipes, Dylan went down on one knee, produced an engagement ring and asked Fialkowski to be his wife. She consented.
“It was a total surprise to Brianne,” said a member of the Abbott family. “Dylan had family members in Scotland helping with the surprise and Margaret Gray, Bob and Millie’s bridesmaid, was there for the proposal.”
Because a video of the proposal had been filmed and uploaded to the Internet, family members in Norquay knew the very same day that the proposal had occurred.
“Dylan had been planning this all year,” the family member said.
