640 pumpkins spell marriage for Vancouver Island couple

Pumpkin lattes, pumpkin beers, pumpkin donuts and now, you can add a pumpkin marriage proposal to the ever-growing list of things infused with the bright orange squash at this time of year.

A Vancouver Island man took his then-girlfriend on a scenic plane trip Saturday and used pumpkins to pop the question.

On the flight, Jesse Seads asked Justine Aichelberger to look out the window to a Central Saanich pumpkin patch below where he and some co-conspirators had rolled 640 pumpkins into place to spell out "Justine will you marry me?"

"I was completely shocked. At first I was like, why are they so adamant about looking at pumpkins? They must really like pumpkins," Aichelberger told All Points West host Robyn Burns.

"I look and there's something spelled out in the field and I just didn't know what to do. I was in shock."

When she turned back to Seads, he was holding a ring. Her answer was yes.

'Atape measure and dumb luck'

So why pumpkins?

Seads said, firstly, he thought they would be easily seen from the air. Getting the 640 into place required the work of Seads, his father, a friend, a 95-year-old neighbour and "a tape measure and dumb luck."

But Seads and Aichelberger have another connection to fall time: they met for the first time at a Halloween party seven years ago.

"It just seemed to make the most sense," Seads said of the idea. "It just all kinda came full circle. It was great."

Seads and Aichelberger don't have plans to make the wedding fall- or pumpkin- or Halloween-themed at this point, they said, but Seads advocated for the inclusion of pumpkin cheesecake on their big day.

"It's our favourite," he said.

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With files from CBCRadio One's All Points West