A Texas man spent months teaching his soon-to-be-fiancé how to ice skate – just so he could pop the question at the iconic rink at Rockefeller Center.
After nearly three years together, Houston native Barrington Dave was ready to give his girlfriend, Kennedy Kinnard, an engagement ring — and hatched the perfect plan.
“I was like, Kennedy loves Christmas and loves New York – and what’s more Christmas-y than the tree at Rockefeller Center?” Dave, 29, told The Post this week.
Before setting off on a five-night trip to the Big Apple, and in order to prevent his proposal plan from becoming a literal flop, Dave took Kinnard, a 25-year-old Dallas native, skating.
“After about an hour she was off the wall [and] she was kind of skating around — I saw what I needed to see. I was like, ‘Oh, she’s not going to fall . . . it’s going to be okay,’” Dave recalled.
The rain threatened his big reveal on Dec. 16, but Rockefeller Center “thankfully” still let people hit the rink.
At around 3:30 p.m., a rink employee in cahoots with Dave politely asked everyone else to get off the ice.
With just the two of them on the ice, the 74-foot-tree as a majestic backdrop, and their favorite song, Beyonce’s “Dangerously in Love,” blasting over the speakers, Dave got down on one knee.
Kinnard began squealing with delight, and lovestruck onlookers hooted and hollered.
“Once I figured out what was going on, I was like, ‘Wow,’” she recalled. “He put all of this thought and effort into it . . . It was just so, so touching.
“It was absolutely perfect,” Kinnard gushed.
“I did not have a clue it was happening that day . . . I had a pimple patch on!” she laughed.
Adorably, Dave chronicled all of his planning leading up to the proposal, as well as the special moment itself, in a TikTok video that has been seen 13.1 million times.
For the happy couple, who met at a mutual friend’s wedding, the Big Apple holds a very special place in their hearts – not only because it’s where their engagement began.
The city was the last place Dave’s mother took him before she died of breast cancer in 2006 at age 39, said Dave, who hadn’t returned since then.
After Kinnard graduates from Washington University in St. Louis this spring, she will relocate to New York for a year-long position at a law firm while Dave, an accountant, holds down the fort in Houston.
The couple have been long-distance the entire time they’ve been together, so it won’t be an issue, they said.
“I know he will be there for plenty for visits,” Kinnard said. “This city means a lot to us.”
