Marriage proposal comes with morning paper

A 22-year-old Carol Stream native got a marriage proposal delivered to her doorstep Friday, right along with her morning paper.

A full-page ad on the back of the DuPage County Neighbor section in the Daily Herald asked Kara Gajeske to marry her boyfriend of four years, 22-year-old Vince Arehart of Bloomingdale.

“When she went to the back page of the Neighbor section, she saw ‘Kara, will you marry me?' and me on one knee telling her how much I loved her,” Arehart said shortly after his successful proposal.

Gajeske, wearing her princess-cut diamond ring, said she was surprised by the proposal and delighted to say “yes.”

“I was really shocked that he was down on one knee and asked me to marry him,” Gajeske said. “I'm just thrilled and very excited.”

Flipping through the paper each morning is a normal activity for Gajeske and Arehart, who recently moved into a Bloomingdale home together. But making sure Gajeske saw the exact page featuring the proposal was the trick, Arehart said.

He brought the paper to the table while Gajeske was making coffee and told her there was an article about his business he wanted her to see. Arehart said he owns a credit card processing company called Total Merchant Services and told his girlfriend the paper had written about its Better Business Bureau rating.

He shuffled a few pages away from the proposal ad, then told her to flip to the left when she didn't see anything about his company.

“I thought it was really cute, especially how he told me it was something about his business,” Gajeske said.

A friend helped Arehart brainstorm proposal ideas different from the methods used by others in his family, who he said proposed on lavish vacations.

“I probably could have provided her with the same idea, but I wanted to be a little more creative,” Arehart said.

When the friend, Janelle Abbate, who also played a role in introducing the couple, suggested using a newspaper ad for the proposal, Arehart said he wanted to go for it.

“I thought, ‘Man, that really seems original. You don't see that every day,'” he said.

When the proposal ad ran Friday, DuPage County readers saw a heart-shaped photo of Arehart and Gajeske taken this summer at Arehart's cousin's wedding and a graphic of two lovebirds on a tree branch.

Arehart said he was glad the proposal wasn't predictable.

“Kara and I have had a lot of surprises throughout our relationship, but this was probably the biggest one she'll have, and she'll cherish it for a long time,” he said.

The couple plan to marry in May 2013 but for now look forward to spreading the engagement news to friends and family and finding a special place for their personalized newspaper page.

“We're definitely going to save it, get it laminated and framed, and put it up in our house,” Gajeske said.