Falls Church native Simon van Steyn and Shelly Childs got engaged on Sunday, March 29, in Bluemont, Va. The weather held up enough for van Steyn to surprise Childs with an airplane ride, flying over a giant display reading “Shelly, will you marry me?”. According to Simon’s father, Shaun van Steyn, there was a rush to reassemble the display after “wind from the previous day blew it all apart. It was like a massive jig-saw puzzle with little time to put it all together.”
Friends and family of both Simon and Shelly gathered to celebrate the engagement after the airplane ride. Actually, Shaun van Steyn said, Childs’ brother proposed to his girlfriend the weekend before Simon and Shelly got engaged, so it was a “double celebration.”
