Venice sunset proposal rings true for Bournemouth couple at Forum Jewellers

Forum Jewellers in Broadstone recently announced the winners of their Win Your Wedding Ring competition, which was run on social media with couples posting their engagement stories on Facebook where they received ‘likes’.

Joel Wiltshire & Rebekah Smith entered the competition and beat 54 other couples. Each engagement story was posted daily on Forum’s Facebook page and the five stories that received the most ‘likes’ were then voted on via the Forum website.

The idea came about when Forum learned that one of their customers, Pete, had proposed to girlfriend Kerri at the bottom of The Statue of Liberty with a platinum engagement ring bought from the store. Realising that there would be many romantic and interesting stories from people getting engaged, Forum decided to run the competition.

The winning happy couple met at university in Cardiff back in 2010 before moving to Bournemouth over a year ago.

Joel proposed to Rebekah in a gondola at sunset during their holiday in Venice last summer. They plan to marry in August 2018.

Rebekah explains how excited they were to win their rings: “We honestly still can’t believe it. We are so overwhelmed and grateful to everyone who took the time to vote for us, we couldn’t believe the response we got throughout the voting stages.

“We are still in shock but it all felt real when we visited Forum to view some beautiful rings once we found out that we won.”

Helen Molloy, Forum’s director, was overwhelmed by the response. “We had no idea when we first launched that the competition would be so popular. All of the stories were so lovely and everyone received a voucher as a thank you for sharing their special moment with us,” she said.