The sun set over Paris. McKinley Gerber knelt on one knee. And Aundi Yorgason's master plan finally fell into place.

She was engaged — or so people thought.

Joining the tour

This semester, 50 students attended BYU-Idaho's British Literary Tour. For one month, we traveled across Europe, making goofy memories and even goofier friends.

Concocting the plan

"To me, the Eiffel Tower was just a hunk of metal that people stacked super high, so it was kind of boring," said Yorgason. "I didn't know much else about Paris besides the fact that they loved their baguettes."

Relationships were the last thing on Yorgason's mind. She was working on her mission papers, studying English and making new friends.

But she wasn't sure how to make her time in Paris memorable. She wanted something that would leave a lasting impression — a lore drop for future generations. A story she could tell that would make her loved ones laugh.

Then it dawned on her. People get engaged at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Finding the guy

"I barely knew any of them [the guys] before coming to the tour," Yorgason wrote. But as she got to know them, she developed deeper friendships.

Partway through the trip, she proposed the idea to Gerber, and he readily accepted the challenge.

"I thought it would be pretty hilarious and wanted to send pictures to friends and family to mess with them," wrote Gerber.

With her fake man locked in, and our group's timely arrival in Paris, they were ready.

Faking the proposal

Despite her aching feet from traversing across Paris, Yorgason's energy never wavered. Adrenaline pumped through her veins all day.

That evening, Yorgason, Gerber and a few others waited at the top of the tower and watched the sunset while their friend with the ring steadily climbed the stairs. As soon as she arrived, they "got right to it."

Gerber knelt on one knee, held up the borrowed ring, and said, "Aundi, in the three weeks I’ve known you, I still don’t know how to pronounce your full name. Nevertheless, will you marry me?”

"It was all I could do to keep myself from bursting out with laughter," Yorgason said. "Having never been engaged, I took the ring right out of his hand and put it on (sorry, nobody told me he was supposed to do it), and it was then that we began laughing our heads off. Cheers went up all around, and a couple of boys nearby whined that they would never be able to get a girl."

Their group made their way to the bottom of the tower once more, where they found that the tower was glowing, so they had a photo shoot.

As they took photos, one of the professors and his wife started jokingly chanting, "Kiss, kiss, kiss!"

The rest of the students shouted, "Hug, hug, hug!"

Yorgason and Gerber decided to attempt a stage kiss.

"It came out horribly," Yorgason said. "I was trying not to laugh, but in the picture I looked like I was being kissed by a frog."

When they showed others the photo, one of the professors exclaimed, "Now that’s what true love looks like!”

"We decided it was the perfect picture," Yorgason said. So they sent it to their families and friends. And some of them believed it.

Coming back home

"My experience on the Brit lit tour was awesome," Gerber wrote. "It was great to travel among a group of people who I could make easy friends with."

Though he wasn't really nervous about the staged proposal because he knew it wasn't real, he was concerned about how he would least inconvenience the people around them. Thankfully, it all worked out.

"All in all, it was one of the funniest, most wholesome experiences of my life, and I would do it all again given the opportunity," Yorgason said. "Everyone in the tour group was super supportive and kind, and my fake fiancé is still one of my best friends from the trip. So if you get the chance to go on the Brit Lit Tour, take it! Who knows, maybe you’ll get engaged for real."

Yorgason and Gerber are just one example of the close friendships and hilarious experiences shared by many in the tour group. To showcase a few other random happenings, here are additional quotes we compiled on the trip.

Some quotes taken out of context

—"'Why are you late?' 'I was attacked by a ninja grandma.'"

—"My husband just calls me 'Babe' because he doesn't know my name is Lucretia."

—"If we're going to be on the moor, does that make us moor-ons?"

—"I just had a thought." "I don't get those often."

—"It's the boots with the fyrd."

—"When you take the class Mother Country Overthrow 101, they teach you that when you win, you can appropriate whatever you want."

—"I’m going to be prancing so hard, Prancer will lose his name.”

—"I'm undercover. Don't look at me!"

—"Good friends don't let birds fly away with their friends."

—"I don't have the plague."

—"Don't slam your nose into the seat in front of you. It kind of hurts."

—"This creepy old man was me... looking at me."

—"I got sprayed in the face like my water bottle's a freaking bidet."

—"We're going to have to jump on the bus crazy fast. It'll be like SEAL Team 6 on the Bin Laden compound."

—"I have nothing more to lie, so..."

—"Alright, you little bladder babies."

—"If I were a flavor, I’d be orange chocolate. "I think I’d be chocolate raisin." "I’d be fish guts."

—"And then you smudge the glass. And then you leave."