Man Proposes to Broadway-Loving Bride-to-Be With Elaborate ‘Rent’ Recreation
— -- How do you measure the distance of love?
For hopeful groom-to-be, Omar Kenawi, it was summed up in exactly 5,437 miles. That was the distance between him in London and the love of his life, Susan Schlegel, in Los Angeles.
After the two met online and became enamored with each other over the course of a few months, they finally met in person and officially began dating on Feb. 7, 2013. It was in that moment that Kenawi knew Schlegel was the woman for him.
"That just confirmed to me what I already knew,” Kenawi, 28, told ABC News. “I wanted to put a ring on it and make her my wife!”
Schlegel, a big fan of musicals, had once told Kenawi “that she would one day like to find herself in a musical in her real life,” he explained. “She also told me that she dreamed of her proposal most of all.”
Always wanting to “make her wishes and dreams come true,” the hopeless romantic began formulating his elaborate Broadway musical “Rent”-themed proposal plan.
“Sue's favorite musical is 'Rent' which I hadn't seen, so I watched it and loved it,” said Kenawi. “I picked my favorite song from the show, 'Seasons of Love,' and I really wanted to make it special to us so I rewrote the lyrics to be more personal to our unique relationship.”
He named the song “Forever Love,” changing up the lyrics from the traditional “Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes. How do you measure, measure a year?,” to instead fit the description of their long-distance relationship: “Five thousand, four hundred and thirty seven miles. How do you measure the distance of love?”
For Kenawi, the answer to that question was simple.
“In day dreams, in Skype chats, in parcels, in cute messages, in air miles, in songs, in laughter, in mind, in five thousand, four hundred and thirty seven miles,” the lyrics continued to the tune of the popular “Seasons of Love” song.
With the lyrics complete, sure to impress his musical-loving girlfriend, he chose the perfect venue to pull off the elaborate proposal—the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, where he and Susan had shared beautiful sunsets together.
“It had a lot of personal memories for us,” he explained.
Kenawi booked flights from London to LA, keeping everything very “hush hush.” He had Susan’s family and closest friends in on the secret, as he hadn’t seen her in four months and relied on them to help pull the stunt off perfectly.
He hired an A Cappella group to help him perform the song, arranged for a cinematographer to be on site capturing Susan’s arrival and even practiced dance moves with a flash mob for two hours to ensure everyone was poised and ready to go.
“All there was left to do was change into my suit, hide out in my position, and wait for my love to arrive!,” said Kenawi.
As Schlegel was led into position under the guise she was there for a “marketing job,” the plan began to unfold and she found herself in the middle of a “dream come true,” living her own real-life musical. Needless to say, the shocked bride-to-be said “yes,” screaming it from the rooftops.
“Months of planning all hinged on that moment, and the excitement and elation we all felt at its success was something I'll never experience again,” Kenawi recalled. “It was the best moment of my life.”
The soon-to-be newlyweds have not set a wedding date yet, but after such an elaborate proposal, Schlegel says they’d like to their time to “plan something intimate and unique,” about a year from now.
