Handmade coaster helps make popping the question extra special for Telford man

So he enlisted the help of students from the Hadley Learning Community to make it a proposal she would never forget.

Youngsters designed him a special coaster, which the couple still have and made their special moment one they will treasure forever.

Richard, who runs Telford Maintenance Ltd, said it sparked an idea to make the proposal as personal as possible.

He said: "I didn't just want to get down on one knee with a ring, I wanted to do something a bit more special."

The couple have been together for around four years before Richard proposed on Valentine's Day.

As part of the Young Enterprise Community Programme, pupils have been finding out what it is like to set up and run their own company, designing products and selling them in Telford Shopping Centre.

Group Coaster Your Cup make personalised coasters, designed to look like the game Scrabble. Richard said: "Donna's son Toby was part of the Young Enterprise at Idsall School and I saw the coasters.

"We already had a weekend in Chester planned and I'd had the ring for a few months but I just hadn't found the right time or place."

The 55-year-old said that as long as they had been together, Donna had loved Chester Zoo and had regularly taken her children, so that was the place he decided to propose.

He said: "I got a couple to film the whole thing, she went to get some chocolate and when she came back I gave her a box and inside, wrapped in yellow crepe paper – because that is her favourite colour – was the coaster.

"She said of course she'd marry me and then I said lets celebrate with a Ferrero Rocher because that is her favourite chocolate.

"I put the ring inside a little plastic ball and wrapped it up and put it into a box of four chocolates so that I knew which one was the ring, when she opened it she was very surprised."

The couple have not yet set a date for the wedding, but Donna has started planning.