This Valve employee proposed to his girlfriend in virtual reality

Testing out a virtual reality headset would be enough to make my day by itself, but doing that AND getting to be a part of one of the world’s first virtual reality marriage proposals would be on whole other level of awesome. That’s what Kelly Tortorice got to experience last week when she went to go visit her boyfriend at the Valve headquarters in Bellvue, where he works, to test out the upcoming HTC Vive headset. While testing it out, her boyfriend surprised her with a marriage proposal. 

Kelly Tortorice was already having a pretty special day: unlike the rest of us, she was at Valve’s Headquarters in Bellevue, WA, testing out some pretty nifty unreleased virtual reality technology. But in between painting with fire, exploring the Alps, and wandering through an sunken ship, something appeared out of the digital ether: a big ol’ fairy tail ring. She reached out and grabbed it, and when she took off her VR headset, the virtual jewelry became a very real engagement ring. The clever (and delightfully nerdy) wedding proposal was conjured up by her boyfriend Chandler Murch. He just so happens to work at Valve, so getting his hands on the HTC Vive headset probably wasn’t too difficult. But it was the virtual reality system’s inventive controllers that allowed the proposal to go off without a hitch: by holding the controller out in front of his girlfriend, Murch was able to line up the virtual ring and the engagement ring. Fortunately for Murch, Kelly said yes. Now we just have to wonder: will the wedding be in virtual reality, too?