Perth’s Chanel Duguid grew up loving Walt Disney films, but there was one in particular that had her heart.
Little did Chanel know, her favourite movie, The Little Mermaid, would one day inspire her marriage proposal.
Chanel’s partner Warren Steele told the Mail when he heard about the mermaid tours at Busselton Jetty’s Underwater Observatory, he knew that was how he would ask Chanel to be his wife.
“I grew up in Manjimup so I would go to Busselton a lot, and Chanel and I always go to Busselton and stay at the Four Seasons,” he said.
“We were with a bunch of friends who were going to do the jetty tour with their kids.
“I’ve been thinking about the proposal for a while, I had ideas, but when I heard about the jetty mermaids I was like ‘yep, that’s perfect’.
“I wanted it to be a bit of a fairy tale, we have been together four years so I wanted it to be something good, and we can return here for our anniversaries and things like that.”
The special moment was made possible by the Busselton Jetty team and Southwest Mermaids.
While touring the observatory, a jetty team member distracted Chanel by asking to take a photo for the attraction’s Facebook page.
Another staff member sent the signal and Mermaid Nixie kicked into action, swimming towards the observatory window with a sign saying ‘Chanel, Will you marry me? Warren’.
“Chanel was filming the mermaid swimming and I had to tell her to stop,” he said.
“When she saw it, she got really nervous and I got down on one knee.
“She couldn’t speak, but she bent down and kissed me. I said ‘is that a yes?’ and she said ‘of course it is’. She was just so shocked.”
As for where they are going to get married, Warren didn’t rule out a beautiful South West wedding.
“She wants to go to Vegas,” he said.
“But we always go to the wineries and breweries down here so we’ve always thought that would be good. After we got engaged, we went to a few and thought ‘how cool would it be here’.”
Mermaid Nixie, who played a crucial role in the proposal, said she was nervous about getting the timing right.
“I can’t see through the glass so I just had to go for it and hope for the best,” she said.
“I felt extremely honoured to be part of this special occasion.”
