The women who took a leap of faith for love

‘I knew it was the right thing to do’

Popular local broadcaster Lynda Bryans has been married to Ulster Unionist Party leader husband for 24 years, and they have two grown up sons, 21-year-old PJ and 18-year-old Christopher.

She took the bull by the horns and popped the question on a romantic trip to New York - but would-be fiance Mike was in the know, and played along, even tipping off the waiter to have a bottle of bubbly at the ready.

She reveals: “I asked Michael to marry me, but it wasn’t as if it was a surprise or a bolt out of the blue for him. He knew that I was going to ask him.

“We had talked about it. We had both been married to other people before and it was a leap year, so I had kind of been teasing him I was going to ask him, that it was my opportunity. And he joked back that he was washing his hair that day, or that he would be out of the country.

“I got the flights booked to New York for a long weekend. He had never been before.

“I booked a restaurant called the Russian Tea Rooms, which is no longer there, but it was famous at the time for being in one of the well known scenes in the film Tootsie, which starred Dustin Hoffman.

“We had a lovely meal and I went off to powder my nose and prepare myself. He knew the moment was coming, and he ordered a bottle of champagne, which was the last thing I needed because I had already had about six glasses of wine for Dutch courage!

“So he tipped off the waiter and said, ‘ when I give you the nod, please bring a bottle.’ I came back and made a speech to him, and talked about how we said we would never do this again (we had both been married before) but I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life alone, and didn’t want to spend it with anybody else, and would he marry me?

“That was so long ago now - it was 1992, the February of that year, and we got married quite quickly afterwards, in July in Hawaii.”

But the couple had, as Lynda says, already known each other through their work in broadcasting for a long time.

They had been dating seriously for around a year when Lynda decided that marriage “just felt like the right thing to do.”

She continues: “By this stage I was 30 so time was ticking. I wasn’t nervous, I’m quite a decisive person and once I had decided, that was it. I just knew that Michael was my future. And I knew that he was going to say yes. Had I thought he had any doubts about it, we wouldn’t have even been there.

“He knew what was going to happen and he played along with it. I joke to people who ask what I would have done if he had said no, and say we were visiting the Empire State Building the next day and I might have dangled him off the edge of it!”

Lynda may have been the romantic player in this part of the marriage game between her and Mike, but he surprised and delighted her a hundred times over by planning the whole wedding himself with military precision and the utmost secrecy. All the bride-to-be knew about her nuptials was they were going to take place somewhere sun-drenched, and she had to show up at the airport with her wedding dress.

Little did she know that her romantic other half had remembered her admission to being a fan of the movies which the legendary Elvis Presley had made in Hawaii, and booked a gorgeous little church on this beautiful island to seal the deal.

“I still didn’t know where we were getting married until practically a few days beforehand, because we travelled down the west coast to California and stayed there for a couple of days, and then flew out to Hawaii from there. When he told me I was totally gobsmacked.

“We stayed in a hotel on the beach and got married in a little church. Then we went to this beautiful little restaurant in the mountains with a waterfall beside it and had our wedding dinner, just him and me. And here we are all these years and two big teenagers later.”

‘David is quite laid back and happy enough that I did it!’

On February 29, 2012, David Houston sat down at home to watch the TV coverage of his beloved Northern Ireland play at their home ground of Windsor Park.

What happened at half time was certainly something he wasn’t expecting. For there, right in the middle of the pitch, cheered on by delighted fans, was his girlfriend of nearly two years Lisa, standing with a huge banner which spelled out the six words that were to change his life forever: David Houston, will you marry me?

“I would tell other women to go for it,” smiles his now wife and the mother of the couple’s gorgeous six-month-old son, George. If you’ve found the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, it doesn’t really matter who asks who.”

The 30-year-old care assistant and her 33-year-old husband live in Claudy, and tied the knot at the Silver Birch Hotel in Omagh in October 2013, a year and a half after their Leap Day proposal, which attracted the attention of national and local media. David even received a signed Northern Ireland shirt as a result of his plucky girlfriend’s endeavours!

But Lisa, who works in a nursing home in Omagh, reveals that the idea of popping the big question herself was quite a random one.

“David’s friends had tickets to a Northern Ireland game, but he said he couldn’t be bothered going, so I said I’d like to go as I had never been to a football match,” she reveals, adding the couple met in a Omagh nightclub.

“I asked him what date it was on, and when he said February 29, I said, ‘are you sure you want me to go?’ But he was so busy watching the Super Sunday game that he didn’t even take me on.”

What started off as something to tease her boyfriend about began to take legs, as Lisa got in touch with the Irish Football Association to see if they would allow her to ask Sky TV to point their cameras at her during the match so she could hold up her ‘proposal’.

But Sky told her that she would need to actually come on to the pitch.

Lisa began to round up friends of the popular couple and persuaded them to get in on the act as well, including one who volunteered to come and watch the match with David and make sure he didn’t suddenly decide to switch the channel over at the crucial moment!

The first half of the match passed without a single goal, which didn’t help Lisa’s nerves. Then, when the whistle blew, she made her way onto the pitch, helped by a couple of David’s friends, and unveiled the five foot banner, which she had ordered online, proclaiming the question of all questions.

“It was the longest five minutes of my life waiting for the phone to ring to hear a yes,” she laughs.

“Finally he rang and said, ‘what are you at?’, and I said, ‘well?’. He said yes, and I shouted his answer to the crowd and got a massive cheer. It was hilarious.

“It was brilliant, when you look back on it now. You think to yourself, because you’re older now, how on earth did I do that? But we have so many newspaper clippings about it all together in a wee scrap book. It’s definitely a great story.”

And Lisa says she would urge other women not to hesitate if they’re thinking of proposing this February 29.

“David would say now that he felt it was a very special experience,” she says, before adding with a laugh: “He is quite laid back, and I would say was happy enough that I did it!”

‘It was a joint effort’

um popped the question to her future intended live on local radio.

The 41-year-old, who lives in Newtownabbey with now husband Ally Clarke, 42, and their children Samuel, 9, and Rosa, 7.

They tied the knot in 2001 in Jordanstown, followed by a gorgeous recepeption at Galgorm Resort and Spa outside Ballymena.

“I had heard aboout Ally through a mutual friend,” recounts Claire. “He said I’d love his mate Ally Clarke. We eventually met in Belfast one night and that friend was right, I was intrigued by him straight away.”

The former Dundee University graduate, who has worked for both UTV and BBC, says that the subject of marriage arose quite early on in their relationship.

“I think we both knew this was different,” she says.

So on February 29, 2000, Claire, decided to take the plunge.

“I was working as the Breakfast newsreader on Downtown Radio and I proposed live on air after the 8am news! My co presenters had been keeping me going about Ally and as leap year was looming it was an obvious point of banter for them. I did test the water the night before, just to be sure! I was a bit nervous but we knew it was right, and I would have had to wait another four years to do it again, so I had to act!

“He said yes, thankfully! The day before our wedding we went for lunch and he produced a beautiful watch and asked me to marry him.

“So it was a joint effort on the proposal front in the end!”

Claire’s advice to other women thinking about popping the question is to “absolutely go for it.”

It’s certainly a big step and I think women are potentially more hesitant when it comes to popping the question.

“But if you’re sure this is the man for you, then why not. You’ll always have a great proposal story for the kids!”