Finance senior Steven Chambers proposed to his girlfriend of five years, Aranza Frias, with the help of Bruno Mars’ “Marry You,” friends and some Salsa Fusion dancers. The YouTube video of the flash mob proposal got more than 10,000 hits in one day and now has 40,000-plus views. Life & Arts writer Olivia Knight sat down with the couple to ask them about the event.
THE BATTALION: How did you meet?
FRIAS: We went to high school together. We’ve had classes together since freshman year of high school, but we didn’t really start hanging out until junior or senior year. Because of him, we had assigned seats in high school. And then we mostly had the same teachers during senior year, and so we had a project for English, we had our senior project, which was basically ‘putting your life together’ like little moments and scrapbooks and stuff, so we started working on that when we really didn’t have to.
CHAMBERS: She was always the real quiet one, I was the talkative one. We were like opposites. It’s funny because at our engagement party, our good friends growing up were like, ‘It’s crazy, you guys were so opposite growing up, and now y’all are together.’ We started dating a month before senior prom. She was going out with somebody else to senior prom and I asked her out.
THE BATTALION: What inspired the flash mob proposal?
CHAMBERS: When we were dating, we would always watch videos of flash mobs on YouTube, and they would really inspire us, and it would bring tears to our eyes because we thought the guy always put so much work into it, and the girl was always so surprised, so I thought that was the best thing to do for us because, the way I saw it, I wanted her to feel like a princess, with all the attention on her and what better way? At first it was just a thought, because I don’t know dancers, I don’t know how to do this, but it wasn’t until I mentioned it to my friends at Fuzzy’s Tacos, and my friend Sam was like, ‘No, yeah, we can do this for sure.’ So he kind of sparked it and it went from there. If it weren’t for his enthusiasm, I probably would have done a regular old [proposal], which is fine, but I’ve always wanted to do a flash mob.
FRIAS: He would mention it at times, like, ‘If I proposed, it would be a flash mob.’
THE BATTALION: What was that day supposed to be like? What was going on right before the flash mob?
FRIAS: The night before, one of our really good friends sent a group message, we were supposed to go see Interstellar the next day, they were like, ‘Who’s down to see Interstellar?’ And I was like, ‘I’ve been wanting to watch that movie.’ So I got off work at three that day, and then they texted me at work and said, ‘Let’s go to Sbisa to get some food, and after that we’ll go to the movie.’ He has a parking pass, I don’t, so I was like, ‘Where am I supposed to park?’ And he goes, ‘Don’t worry, Jeff will pick you up.’ So we were walking and talking, but they weren’t listening to me at all the entire time because they were so concentrated on what was about to happen, and then after that I was so surprised.
CHAMBERS: If you watch the video, she’s on her phone the first minute of it. She didn’t know it was for her until her friends ran out.
THE BATTALION: How did Salsa Fusion dancers come to participate in the proposal?
CHAMBERS: We go salsa dancing on Saturday nights at the Village, and the guy who runs it, his name is Chris, and I knew he also works for Maroon Weekly, but I know the owner of Maroon Weekly — his name is also Chris — and I go, ‘Hey Chris! Who’s the Salsa Guy?’ So I got his contact info, and I originally asked him to be a part of it, but he got real sick. So he told me about Salsa Fusion, told me he’d talk to them for me, he was like, ‘I’m sure they’ll say yes.’ But it’d been a week before, and there were no salsa dancers, and so I was really getting nervous, but one of the salsa dancers finally hits me up and says, ‘Hey, we’re interested, where do we meet?’ And they were perfect. A big shoutout and ‘thank you’ to Salsa Fusion.
THE BATTALION: Are any dates set in stone yet?
FRIAS: It looks like it’ll be March 11, 2016. I’m going to a bridal expo to look at ideas and looking at wedding dresses and stuff. Planning a wedding is a lot more than we thought.