After we booked flights to visit Maria's parents in Uzbekistan, I decided it would be a great place to propose as it would allow us to celebrate with Maria's Mum and Dad.

I decided on Registan, the idea being to get there as early as possible; to watch the sunrise and avoid the crowds... I emailed them asking them to confirm what time they open during June; they replied saying 7am. Great! I also messaged a local photographer I found on Instagram, he agreed to meet us there at 7am on the day. All sorted!

The day before, I double checked the opening time... it was clearly written outside in big bold letters: 7am... exactly as expected! Perfect!

So on the big day, we get there around 6:55am... there's nobody there. Not a soul. Everything I’d been planning for months was in ruins! Just as we were leaving, I noticed one single policeman doing the rounds… I decided to go for it: I wanted to try and bribe him to let us in. While walking over, I told myself I would give him up to $100 if needed! The conversation didn’t exactly flow…. He didn’t speak English, I don’t speak Uzbek… however, he seemed to understand me a lot better after I got my wallet out…. To my surprise, he accepted my initial offer of 50,000 Uzbek som… €4!!!

He let us through the barriers… and the rest is history!

It was day 5 of our holiday, we'd been out every day from 8am to 10pm, I was getting pretty tired and all I wanted was to sleep in. So when Matt asked to go to Registan for 7am, I wasn’t exactly thrilled, but said ok.

So we got up to go to Registan for 7 am … I am a little bit embarrassed about just how grumpy I was the entire way there.  When we got there and realised that the site would not open at 7, I stood and complained to my mum for a few minutes while wishing I was back in the hotel in bed, and then noticed that Matt had disappeared! When I found him, he seemed to be speaking to a policeman.

Next thing I know... he'd called us over and let us in! When we made it in, I was only feeling a little better.  We were taking some photos and Matt asked me to turn around, so that he could take a truly Instagram-worthy shot, me romantically looking at the stunning buildings.  When I turned around, he was down on my knee! I did say yes immediately.   

Afterwards, we bribed another policeman to let us go up one of the towers to celebrate.