RTÉ 2fm presenter Ruth Scott has told TEN it was a "fabulous surprise" when fiancé Rob Morgan proposed on New Year's Eve.
The couple have been together for four years and Rob - the son of late Father Ted star Dermot Morgan - proposed while they were away for the week in Wexford with friends.
"Now the friends weren't in the room when it happened - that would be weird!" laughed Ruth. "And then we went back down and waved the ring around and had some champagne - double champagne. I mean, talk about doubling up on the champagne for New Year's! Dry January has gone by the wayside!"
Ruth said that while she knew that she and Rob would marry at some stage, it was still a shock when he dropped down to his knees to propose.
"I won't give you too much detail about the proposal because life wouldn't be worth living! It was a very romantic proposal and great fun as well," she said.
"I really wasn't expecting it because he's doing loads of exams and he's going to qualify this year coming as a management accountant. So I suppose when I think about it I thought, 'Ah, he'll just be studying all year!'"
Rob's profession, she joked, would stand them in good stead when planning their nuptials for 2017.
"He loves an auld spreadsheet - you know, accountants and the like. So already the jokes are flying about who'll be doing the most organising for the wedding. Will it be Rob 'Spreadsheet' Morgan or will it be me? I'm notorious for having scraps of paper with notes written on them 'round the house so I'm guessing he'll be much better at the organising part than I will be. I know that for a fact!"
"He loves the numbers," she continued. "He's going to be a great man when it comes to wedding planning because he'll be qualified as an accountant and also because he used to work in hotels - he also has the inside track. He would've worked in terms of banqueting and accounts in hotels over the years so he'd know some of the finer details. Like, he was telling me about chair covers! I was like, 'What?! Why do you need chair covers?! Can't you just sit in a chair?!'
Myself & @RobMorganDublin were going to do #DryJanuary #OnTheDry but he only went & proposed on New Year's Eve 🎉🍸💍 Can I do DryFeb instead?😉
— Ruth Scott (@ruthscott) January 4, 2016
And we also have no free will 😉🍻 https://t.co/CKjS0e7jlC
— Rob Morgan (@RobMorganDublin) January 4, 2016
Rob's attention to detail had seen him planning the proposal meticulously. Having heard Ruth once talk about a ring that she liked ("not even in relation to a wedding or engagement or anything"), he squirrelled away one of her own pieces of jewellery for measurements and had the ring Ruth described made.
"The ring is gorgeous," she said. "I don't know what the hell it's made out of but it looks like gold and diamonds to me - I'm genuinely not being funny but I don't know what it is. He turned up with this gorgeous ring that fit me - because I always laugh [when] you see it on TV and they're trying to shove on a ring that's too small - so he went and got it made. I really don't have any more details on that. I better find out because don't you have to get rings insured and that kind of craic?!"
Ruth - the youngest of eight - said that despite having attended six of her siblings' weddings and many of friends and classmates, the scales had now fallen from her eyes in terms of organising her own. Finding a big enough venue for both families, she admitted, is now the challenge.
"I suppose I'd never looked at wedding venues before and thought, 'Oh that's what I'd like when I get married'. I've never thought about things in relation to, 'Oh, when I get married'. I just have never had daydreams about getting married. I don't know what I had daydreams about but they never involved white dresses and getting married!
"We were laughing about it, myself and some of the female friends, about some of us in our twenties would've been thinking, 'Oh if I'm not married by the time I'm 30 that's it, I'm gone! But you just don't know when you're going to meet somebody that suits you," she said.
In the days since the proposal, the memories and laughs about when the couple started going out together have come flooding back for both of them.
"You know that moment when you go home to the family and you tell them you have a boyfriend and you tell them the name, and you're willing to tell them where he's from and a few details? I told my mother I was going out with a guy whose father was a priest. And she was like, 'What?! A priest?!' And then we had a laugh about it and I said, 'Actually no, he's Father Ted'."
Ruth will be a guest on the Today show on RTÉ One on Wednesday, where she'll give viewers the first look at her engagement ring.
