“I think we should get married, don’t you?”
The rain kept falling steadily in the small village near Lake Como, Italy. The night was calm, and while the sound of raindrops and the reflection of the lights on the wet ground—covered in fallen leaves—outside the hotel seemed to be the only witnesses of a quiet moment between the two of them, his gaze held steady. And without planning or thinking it through, the words escaped his mouth—words that would stir a whirlwind of emotions inside Camila.
There was no denying that this man was in love with her. He had every reason to be—they had already shared several years together, and he was pretty much struck the very first day he saw her at her workplace.
The silence, and Camila’s lack of response, felt endless for Emin. But in her mind, a flood of mental images played out—scenes of how this moment was supposed to go. Yes, the rain was perfect. Yes, it was romantic—the two of them there in the quiet of a dark night, in one of the most beautiful regions of Northern Italy, on yet another trip together… But there hadn’t been a real proposal. Shouldn’t there be a romantic dinner first? A surprise that had taken months of planning? …and the ring? But none of that had happened. Emin simply followed his heart. He didn’t overthink it. He just knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
And in that moment, he understood Camila even more deeply.
When they returned home, she said: “If we’re going to get married, I want a ring.”
Back in Switzerland, Camila went out in search of her ring. Emin went with her to pick it out, but when it came time to pay, he hesitated. He explained he’d do it later.
A week later, under a little makeshift canopy in their shared apartment, Emin was waiting. This time with the official question:
“I want to know if you truly want to marry me…”
And the ring was waiting for her in that small corner he had built with his own hands.
Maybe we need to accept that what we long for will come to us in ways we never planned or dreamed of. But it will come. And that doesn’t make it any less meaningful.
Two lives crossed paths to create a new story—and that story is already becoming something greater. A daughter, still in the womb, attending her parents’ wedding. Two cultures, as distant as they are close. Two different ways of seeing and feeling, and yet, at the core, the same truth: that emotion, laughter, hugs, and the sense of celebration in moments like this one connect us more than any cultural difference ever could. Albanian music and dances mixed with traditional Argentine food—a combination hard to resist.
This is the story of Camila and Emin. She’s Argentine-Swiss, he’s Albanian-Swiss. And in these strange times where stories keep intertwining in a chaotic world, love still finds its place—even if it arrives without the sugar-coated scenes, phrases, and Hollywood moments that have seeped into our collective subconscious. Love is real when we accept the other person exactly as they are—even when they propose without a ring in hand, because sometimes symbols aren’t meant to be seen. They live inside us, in the way we look at one another.
That night, in that little town in Northern Italy, with the rain falling just outside the hotel window, nothing more was needed to remember that the moment—is always the perfect moment.
