The winter's tale

Joanna and simon - the proposal

Joanna Lyall, 30, wasn’t expecting a proposal from boyfriend Simon Lilly, 37, when the pair headed to Mexico for some winter sun in 2009. “He’d told me on the plane that he wasn’t in a rush to get married,” she explains. “So when I found a ring box on our balcony on the last day of the trip, I had to ask if he was joking!” He wasn’t, which Joanna quickly realised when Simon dropped to one knee to make the offer official. “We had to finish packing after that, but we were so excited we could barely concentrate.”

Photography: Polly Alexandre