Asda may not spring to mind when you think of a romantic spot for a proposal, but for Lisnaskea man Jarlath Rice there was no better place to ask the big question than aisle 35 of Asda Enniskillen, the location where he first fell in love with his fiancé Fiona McDermott.

“There’s a bit of a story behind it,” laughed Jarlath, when asked why he chose to propose in Asda. Explaining that he had met Fiona whilst undertaking a catering course at South West College, Jarlath said: “As part of the course you had to have a head chef night and one of the recipes that Fiona wanted to have was a lemon meringue pie but we were told by our tutor that it wasn’t posh enough.”

He continued: “We were looking through one of the cookery books in aisle 35 of Asda one night and Fiona seen a really nice posh version of a lemon meringue pie and she said, ‘look, I could have had my lemon meringue pie.’ We hadn’t been going out long together at this stage and I was like, ‘have you seen the film Frozen’ and then I started to sing the song ‘Let it Go’ at her and Fiona bust out laughing.”

Commenting that Fiona has a “very infectious and beautiful laugh” Jarlath said that he also “bust out laughing” at her laugh. “People were basically just staring at us in aisle 35,” he shared. “That’s sort of where I first fell a little bit in love with Fiona.”

The couple, who will have been together three years in March, are fans of ‘Don’t Tell the Bride,’ the television series where the groom organises the wedding without any input from the bride.

Revealing that Fiona and himself had talked about what they would do if they were on the show, Jarlath said: “Fiona was asking me how I would walk her up the aisle, and I said, ‘well I could walk you up aisle 35’ and she was like, ‘we are not getting married in Asda.’ She was very adamant about that, but I would make a joke about it every now and again.”

However, Fiona’s adversity to getting married in Asda gave Jarlath the idea of using the shop as the location for their proposal. He said: “Because she was like ‘we’re not getting married in aisle 35,’ I thought, we might just get engaged in aisle 35 then.”

Jarlath had planned the proposal for Friday December 21, which coincided with his own 40th birthday, but the recipe for romance isn’t always straightforward which he quickly discovered when he tried to get Fiona to go to Asda with him that evening.

“We had went for a lovely meal in 28 Darling Street and the plan was we’d go to Asda and do the Christmas shop after,” explained Jarlath. “However we were running a bit late and Fiona didn’t want to go to Asda but obviously I had planned the engagement and I had a couple of friends involved to give a hand, Ciaran McGrade and Clodagh Wilson,” he added.

Talking about his plan for the proposal, unconventional romantic Jarlath said: “Because aisle 35 is the book section, I had the ring planted in a book that I had made a fake book cover with her name as the author and basically the name of the book was ‘the question.’ I was going to try and get her into aisle 35 and go, ‘oh here this is an interesting book’ but then she was like ‘I don’t want to go shopping.’”

“I ended up basically throwing a toddler tantrum,” confessed Jarlath, who, using his birthday as an excuse, told Fiona he needed to pick up a bottle of gin and a new book from the store. This tactic worked and he eventually managed to get Fiona to aisle 35 where the proposal unfolded.

“I pointed out her book and she’s like, ‘what? Are you serious? Are you doing it here?’ Then literally before I can even ask her the question she’s like, ‘yes, yes I will.’ Everyone hears that and lets a cheer, then I literally raise my hands and shout, ‘I haven’t even asked her yet!’” said Jarlath.

At that point he took the ring out and got down on one knee to ask Fiona to be his wife, which was followed by more cheers from staff and onlookers when she said yes.

“The Asda manager Stephen was very good for allowing me to take over the aisle. He also gave us a bottle of prosecco and said that we could drink it up in the café,” said Jarlath.

It was only later that evening when they had arrived home that Jarlath realised why Fiona was refusing to go to Asda. He shared: “I get back to the house and there’s a surprise birthday party waiting for me, so then I found out why she was throwing such a fit about doing the shopping because there was going to be a surprise.”

He continued: “The funny thing was that the friends I had in on the engagement, Fiona obviously had in on the surprise birthday party.”

“We were completely working against each other the whole day so it was a mad day,” he added.

When asked if they have started planning the wedding, laughing Jarlath said: “Put it this way, if it was that stressful just to get engaged, the wedding is going to be a wee while planning.”

“But at least she’ll be in the know and I’ll be in the know,” he added.