Who Needs Diamonds When You Can Propose With 100 Pounds Of Sapphire Gravel?

When Brandon Parker was preparing to propose to his girlfriend Melissa Absher, he had a to-do list of sorts.

The Spokane , Washington, man penned a song, planned a party with Absher’s family in Montana, and he ordered 100 pounds of gravel from a sapphire mine.

After pulling Absher aside at a family barbecue and proposing with a stand-in costume jewelry ring, Parker made one more promise to Absher with a 100-pound bag of Montana gravel: “Let’s go find your sapphire.”

That’s when the surprise proposal party morphed into a panning-for-sapphires party, with partygoers sifting through the gravel in search of the perfect gem for Absher’s future ring.

To the wrong person, proposing with gravel might have been met with a rebuttal to go kick rocks. For Absher, Parker’s proposal was perfect.