The sweet proposal was captured on video by a restaurant patron.
Michael Maze asked a restaurant patron to record his surprise proposal.@michaelmaze727 via Tiktok
Trinity Brooks wasn’t sure what was happening when, during a recent dinner date, her boyfriend, Michael Maze, began lowering himself from his wheelchair to the floor beside their table. In that moment, she had no idea that her surprise proposal would soon go viral.
The video, shared by Maze, shows the moments leading up to his proposal to girlfriend, Trinity Brooks, who sat across from him at a crowded restaurant.
“Asked the table behind me to record while I propose to my fiancé,” text over the post reads.
The video, which has garnered 2.2 million views, sparked a flood of comments praising the couple’s palpable connection and the care and effort behind the tender moment.
Making the moment meaningful on his terms
Speaking to TODAY.com, Michael Maze, a 29-year-old motocross racer and Uber driver from Tulare, California, shared that he had been planning the proposal for some time.
Maze has used a wheelchair since 2015 after a motocross accident caused him to be paralyzed from the mid-chest down.
While he was certain about proposing, Maze was careful in considering where and how to pop the question. As a wheelchair user, he wanted to find a setting that was intimate and also amenable.
After speaking with a friend who is also a wheelchair user, Maze decided to propose at local Italian restaurant La Piazza. Midway through the meal, Maze asked Brooks if she would grab something for him from their car. While she was outside, he asked the table behind him to start recording. When Brooks returned, Maze excused himself from the table, explaining that he needed to use the restroom.
Brooks watches as he backs away from the table, confusion written clearly on her face. She then spots a camera filming them from across the way, and sees Maze carefully transition from his wheelchair to the restaurant’s floor.
“I was thinking he was just going to pull his legs out in front of him and do a quick stretch,” Brooks recalls. “Then, he starts getting on the ground, and I’m like, Oh, okay. We’re, like, stretching-stretching.”
Once Maze carefully lowered himself from his wheelchair and positioned himself on the ground, he realized his stance was more challenging than he had anticipated.
“I didn’t practice, not even one time,” he explains. “I expected to be able to jump onto the ground, onto my knee, and I wasn’t. I struggled the first second there, which felt like a lifetime on the ground.”
Brooks grows visibly emotional as she realizes what is about to happen.
“I was kind of in shock at first, like I was so happy, and I, of course, immediately said ‘yes’ because I’ve known this is what I wanted for a very long time,” she recalls.
The intimate proposal caused a big reaction from online communities
In the comments section of the post, messages from the wheelchair community, in particular, praise Maze’s intentionality and commitment to the proposal.
“As a wheelchair user myself, for him to get down on the floor and then back into his chair is so hard. This (must) be love!” one user commented.
“Crying from my wheelchair,” another wrote.
“I use a WC too and I’m betting bro was practicing for a long time,” another wrote.
“C5-7 quad and I hated that I couldn’t get on the floor,” one shared. “When I do floor transfers my fiancée has to help me so I stayed in the chair.”
Others commended the original poster’s fiancée for the space she gave him building up to the big moment.
“The respect and patience & understanding y’all have for each other,” one commenter wrote.
“From day one, he has always let me know he’s got my back,” Brooks said of her fiancé. “No matter what it is, if I need him, he’s there. He’s my best friend — he’s just great. He’s so fun to be around. He makes me smile and laugh, and I couldn’t be happier.”