Proposal gone wrong: Man opens ring box to find ring missing
Dave Van Veen and Kailyn Kenney are searching Milwaukee for the missing custom ring.
By Emily Pofahl
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MILWAUKEE (WISN) — Dave Van Veen wanted to make his proposal to his girlfriend, Kailyn Kenney, memorable.
“The goal was to make it a surprise, and it was certainly a surprising day,” Van Veen said.
Van Veen spent the day Dec. 22 preparing and setting the scene. He had been planning for months.
“I was super nervous,” Van Veen said.
He said he started by showing Kenney’s custom engagement ring to his family in the Madison area, letting them know his plans to propose.
“We looked at the ring and were all excited. I closed it up in the ring box ,and I put it in my jacket pocket. I zipped it shut,” Van Veen said.
From there, he drove to Milwaukee and made multiple stops in the city.
He stopped at the Speedway gas station on East Oklahoma, the corner of Clarence Street and Brisbane Avenue, and Cafe Corazon in Bayview.
Van Veen also stopped to set up an engagement after party at Anodyne Coffee in Bayview, then picked Kenney up at Milwaukee’s Intermodal station.
Van Veen brought her to South Shore Park and got down on one knee.
“There was this moment of confusion when the ring box was empty,” he said.
“I was confused. Like, maybe this was part of the plan? What’s going on?” Kenney said.
The couple calls the case of the missing ring a mystery. Considering that the ring box never left Van Veen’s pocket, the couple doesn’t think the ring was stolen. Their best guess is that it slipped out of the box and out of his pocket at some point in the day.
Ring or no ring, Kenney still said yes when Van Veen popped the question.
“This has really put into perspective what is important,” Kenney said.
Still, the couple is asking for the public to keep an eye out for the ring. They have filed a report with Milwaukee police.
Anyone with information about the ring is asked to email the couple at kailynanddave@gmail.com.
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