Sentenced to life: Florida lawyer stages trial to propose to girlfriend

[brooklynite]

The Guardian

A love of the law has translated into a lifelong love for two Florida attorneys, with the world watching. A video of Brandon Dinetz proposing to Jennifer Lettman, both of Palm Beach county,has captured the hearts of internet viewers. In it, Lettman sat in the gallery of a courtroom under the pretense of watching Dinetz’s opening statements for a DUI case. In the video, the jury of her peers (that is, her family and friends) enters, and Dinetz begins to give an opening statement as Lettman starts to cry, suspecting the plot of the trial is a bit more personal than professional.

“I heard noises behind me of her starting to freak out,” Dinetz said in a phone interview about the special moment. “She started to cry; it was a laugh-cry and then it was all crying. Then she saw all of her friends and colleagues and she knew exactly what was happening at that point. Her reaction was priceless.”

When Dinetz finally asked the big question, Lettman gave an enthusiastic yes – at which point the judge banged his gavel and “sentenced” them to life.

The pair met in 2016 as assistant state attorneys in the Palm Beach county offices. Lettman now practices at a private firm, but the two still occasionally watch each other present cases and ask each other for feedback on their performances.

[okaawhatever]

1. Awwwww...........I hope neither of them uses this approach to ask for a divorce. nt

[DFW]

2. Very inspired! Just the opposite of my boring "proposal"

I was in our office in Boston in December, 1981 when my brother called me up and asked if I wanted to be his best man when he got married in April of 1982. I said sure, where would it be? This was not an obvious question. He lived in Northern Virginia, but his wife-to-be was from Japan. He said Washington. I said absolutely, and I would see if my (then-) girlfriend could take the time to come from Germany as well. He said, "well, if BOTH of you are going to be there, we could make it a double wedding."

I thought, WOW, ZERO arrangements to make! I said I'd call her up in Germany and ask. I called her up in Germany and told her that my brother and his Japanese girlfriend were getting married in Washington in April, and did she think she could get away for it? She said there was no way she WOULDN'T get away for it. I then told her that he invited us to get married with them in a double wedding. She said, "sure, that works for me."

Not the most romantic of proposals, but this was seven and a half years after we had been together (met in West Berlin in 1974), and we both knew that there was going to be no one else in our lives. So, on the neutral ground of the USA, what the Washington press called "the Axis wedding (since the brides were from Germany and Japan)" was held in 1982. The place looked and sounded like the United Nations. Just our overseas guests were from Denmark, Transylvania, the Netherlands and Germany.

The wedding was as fun as the proposal was ordinary, and we are still together, so we must have done something right, even if my proposal wasn't quite as dramatic as this one.