North Plainfield woman proposed to on White House lawn

Bridget Haley of North Plainfield got engaged on May 20 to her boyfriend of five years, Justin Sykes of North Carolina.

So why isn’t this on the Engagements page?

Well, because the elaborate scheme Sykes pulled off is a great story that proves long-distance love can have a happily ever after. We’ll let him tell the tale:

Read more articles and stay in touch with your local news by clicking here

READ: Ornate Park Chateau brings bridal appeal to East Brunswick

READ: The Daily Rundown

“Bridget Haley, my now fianceé, and I have been together for over five years. The first two to three of those years, we lived in different states — she in New Jersey, finishing up nursing school, and I in North Carolina, finishing law school. So we would drive back and forth between states at least once a month. Eventually, we both graduated and decided that Washington, D.C., was the perfect halfway point between our home states, not to mention, we loved the city and had family and friends here.

“I now work for a nonprofit in D.C., and Bridget works at the Lombardi Cancer Center at Georgetown and is also enrolled in graduate school at Georgetown. So D.C. has become this symbol of our relationship, meeting in the middle and creating our own life together in the nation's capital, which is why the White House seemed like the best location to cement our relationship in a city that has given us so much.

“Bridget's cousin, Haley, works at the White House in the West Wing. She and her friend, Matt, who also works in the White House, began planning the proposal with me a few months back. We did a dry run tour in February and chose the location. Haley scheduled the tour for 5:15 p.m., so now all I had to do was create a reason to get Bridget to go. So I made up a fake White House reception invite to a reception my organization was throwing that Bridget thought was the reason we were going. I told Bridget, as an added bonus, her cousin had been kind enough to offer to give us a tour of the West Wing before the 7 p.m. reception.

“My photographer, Michael Kennedy of D.C., showed up at the White House at 4:30 p.m. to do a run-through with Haley and Matt. Michael posed as Haley and Matt's friend so no red flags would go off, and he would join us on the tour under that pretense. So Bridget and I arrived at 5 p.m. for the tour, and Michael was already inside and waiting with his camera set up. We did the tour of the West Wing, and as we exited onto the North Lawn … I took her by the hand, and said, ‘Won't it be amazing to tell our children one day that we got engaged at the White House?’ Her face went blank, and then I dropped to one knee and said, ‘Bridget Lois Haley, will you marry me?’ Overcome with excitement, she stood choked up for a few seconds and eventually took the ring, screaming, ‘Yes, of course!’

“Afterward, her cousin Haley brought out champagne bottles and Presidential Office cups, and we popped champagne and toasted on the North Lawn of the White House. It was amazing!”

Haley and Sykes plan to marry in the fall of 2018 in Wilmington, North Carolina, where they met while students at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington.

Haley said she was overwhelmed by all of the love and support from family and friends in New Jersey and North Carolina that surrounded the engagement.

“But most of all, I'm so impressed with the level of detail and effort that Justin put into making this day so special,” she said. “It's a memorable event in a city we both consider our second home. As Justin likes to put it, ‘It was a presidential proposal for his executive woman.’”

Staff Writer Bob Makin: 732-565-7319; bmakin@gannett.com