The beaches of the North Coast can be great places for making memories. For a young tech executive from Bonney Lake, the dunes near Damon Point provided the setting for the payoff of an elaborate plan that played out perfectly when his girlfriend became his fiancée by saying, “Yes!”

Nayt Duval, a Verizon district manager for south Seattle, enlisted the aid of Dianne Hansen and Alan Rammer of the Beachcombers Fun Fair when he cooked up a conspiracy that had he and his intended, Paige McGuire, attending the event on March 3, where they “won” a guided beach walk with the Coastal Interpretive Center’s Steve Green.

The couple plus “a couple carloads of friends” that Duval had recruited met Green and “discovered” a message in a bottle at the seashore. Out popped local photographer Stuart May and Duval got on one knee. The groom-to-be made the memory even more meaningful, as it was then revealed that he had arranged for several of McGuire’s family to be present as well.

If that wasn’t enough, Green told the crowd, now about 20 happy visitors, to use the radio apps on their smart phones to tune to local radio station KOSW, where they heard on-air personality Bill Green congratulate the couple and play the song, “Marry Me,” by Train.

Duval commented, “When asked in the future… ‘What has been the toughest thing you’ve gone through in life?’ I can easily remember this weekend, at Ocean Shores with all the in-depth planning… I am stress-free with my now-fiancé when she said, ‘Yes!’”