RNC Staffer Pops the Question on the Big Stage in Tampa

Love was in the air at the Republican National Convention in Tampa yesterday as RNC production manager Bradley Thompson surprised his fiancée, Laura Bowman, with an elaborate marriage proposal on the convention stage. The proposal was captured by the national media and applauded by the Republican conventioneers.

As production manager, not only did the 32-year-old Thompson have access to the big stage, where Republican headliners have been making their speeches over the past two days, he also had the ability to design his own graphics for the massive multi-panel video displays that surround the stage. He rigged them to read: "Laura Bowman will you marry me?"

Thompson called his girlfriend up to the stage, where he dropped to one knee and offered his proposal. Bowman said, "Yes," and the couple embraced – as video crews from various media outlets captured the moment. The event was broadcast on CNN and picked up by the Associated Press, in addition to other outlets.

According to BuzzFeed, RNC chairman Reince Priebus offered his best wishes on Twitter, saying: "Congrats to the lovely couple who got engaged on the convention stage today!"

Both Brooklyn natives, Thompson had called Bowman, an RNC production coordinator, up to the stage on the ruse that there was a sound problem. At that point, she knew something was up. "I thought there was something fishy when he said there was a sound problem because there are never technical problems when he runs the show," she joked.