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Man turns family's farm into a sweet — and corny — proposal

As with any wedding proposal, the grand gesture Travis Drexler had planned to ask his girlfriend, Allie Randall, to marry him came with some risks. He wasn’t just gambling his own pride, but also the fate of his family farm’s annual 3-acre corn maze in Fabius, N.Y., into which he carved the words: “Allie, will you marry me?”

The corn-maze proposal that won the internet. (Photo: Courtesy of Travis Drexler/Allie Randall)
The corn-maze proposal that won the internet. (Photo: Courtesy of Travis Drexler/Allie Randall)

“We were out in the field in June planting pumpkins and were trying to think of a corn maze idea,” Drexler tells Yahoo Lifestyle of the moment he came up with the plan with his father. Asking her this way reminded him of Jason Aldean’s “Tattoos on This Town,” which describes those same words, “Allie, will you marry me?” painted on an overpass.

Drexler, who says he likes doing big gestures for people who are important to him, cut the maze in June with his father’s help. After carving out the maze, he had to wait two nerve-wracking months for the corn to grow tall enough to be seen from the drone his neighbor uses each year to photograph it from above in the sky.

For his actual proposal, he showed Randall the aerial photo.

“I knew that any sort of public proposal was completely out of the question for her, so the moment itself was very personal, very private,” Drexler says. “That was a way to make a loud declaration but still have it kept between the two of us at the same time.”

Though the pair grew up in the same central New York town, they only just met and started dating last November. Drexler said he was almost certain she would say yes.

“But there was a 1 percent chance that could take this from an amazing success story to an epic failure,” he says, laughing. “I’m not sure what I would have done. I would have been extremely embarrassed, and we might have had a big crop failure.”

Randall actually says that chance was zero, though she was glad they were alone when she first saw his words. “People did not get to watch my reaction, except for Travis,” she says. “It was an intimate moment that we’ll have forever.”

Aside from the attention Drexel’s proposal is garnering (thanks to another friendly neighbor who called the local news station), the maze is still just theirs until September, when typically around 10,000-15,000 people visit the farm.

The happy couple. (Photo: Courtesy of Travis Drexler/Allie Randall)
The happy couple. (Photo: Courtesy of Travis Drexler/Allie Randall)

“I think it will be pretty cool,” Randall says of having all those people walk through the words meant for her. “The moment was private, but we get to share our joy with everybody, and it’s been pretty cool to see the reaction that people have had. It’s brought smiles to a lot of people’s faces.”

Drexler and Randall say they’re not quite ready to start planning their wedding, especially amid all the attention the proposal is attracting.

“We’re just happy to be engaged,” Randall says.

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