Tasma Walton and Rove McManus’s engagement wasn’t your standard ‘down on one knee’ affair, but who would expect this colourful couple to do things the old fashioned way?
They may have kept their recent wedding a secret, but Tasma is happy to share how she proposed to her TV host boyfriend some months earlier.
Having first asked Rove’s mum for her blessing, Tasma got creative with post-it notes and paint in order to pop the big question.
“I found these American Post-It notes that have little lovebirds on them,” says Tasma. “Rove’s a twitcher; he loves birds. And I put them in a way that spelt out ‘marry me’ and then wrapped it up. He’d come back from the United States and I said [in a broad Aussie accent], ‘You’ve got a present!'”
He opened it and Tasma asked in the same silly voice, “So? Are you gunna? Do you wanna?”
Proving that the kooky couple are just made for each other, Rove replied, “Orright. If ya want.”
“It was a bit goofy,” admits Tasma. “But it was good.”
Rove and Tasma have been friends since 1999 when she appeared as a guest on his show, in fact she was the one who introduced him to his first wife Belinda Emmett, who died from cancer in 2007.
After Belinda’s death, Tasma says her perception of Rove changed from “this great, funny guy I had a fraternal instinct about, to seeing him as this handsome, intelligent, grounded man.”
“In a moment, I literally saw him in a different light,” she says.
But honouring Belinda’s memory is still important to Tasma, who understands that Rove will “probably grieve for the rest of his life”.
“[That grief] is an important part of who he is. And I love him for who he is,” she says.
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