A one-of-a-kind proposal in Yellowknife

It has all the makings of a movie scene. A rough diamond, dancing northern lights and a former Bachelorette contestant.

Mike Ogilvie recently travelled from Winnipeg to Yellowknife with his now-fiancée Nicole Lacey to pull off the proposal of a lifetime.

“I was looking at a lot of other people’s proposals and I’m like, ‘I don’t know.’ It just seems like they all do the same thing,” he said, “and how I can make it special?”

That’s when Ogilvie came up with the idea that, instead of getting down on one knee with a ring, he wanted to propose with a rough diamond.

“I don’t want a finished diamond that’s really shiny and nice and all ready to go because at this point, I feel like the diamond has lost its impact or its symbolism,” he explained. “Yeah, it looks great, but there’s no real story behind it.”

“I wanted a true representation of what a relationship is … It’s not this perfect diamond that’s always perfect. It’s rough sometimes,” he continued, adding that shaping the diamond would symbolize the couple shaping their future together.

“When we’re in those rough times, which we’ll inevitably be in, she can look down at her diamond and see that it’s perfect and remember what it used to look like and … remember what this whole relationship is supposed to be about,” he said.

“We’ll get through the struggles and come out looking beautiful again.”

‘Well, Mike, that’s illegal’

To make his vision a reality, Ogilvie sought help from Lucara Diamond, a Canadian diamond company with a mine in Botswana. Months later, he said Tanuja Skelerc, who works for Lucara subsidiary Clara Diamond Solutions, contacted him on Instagram and he shared his idea.

“She’s like, ‘Well, Mike, that’s illegal,'” he recalled of her response. “You can’t just walk around with a rough diamond as a normal citizen where there’s no serial number, there’s no tracking.”

But Ogilvie was undeterred. He worked with Skelerc to find a legal way to make his dream proposal come true.

Rather than shipping a rough diamond from Botswana, Ogilvie said Skelerc suggested getting one from Ekati, Canada’s first diamond mine, in the NWT.

“I said well that’s even better, that’s a great idea, I would love that,” he said.

Skelerc connected Ogilvie with Diamonds de Canada, a diamond manufacturer that has access to NWT-mined rough diamonds and cuts and polishes the gems in the territory.

He then devised a plan to travel with Lacey to Yellowknife over March break to surprise her with a proposal under the aurora borealis.

The proposal

“The aurora was dancing like crazy,” Ogilvie said of the magical moment he popped the question.

“It was I think about -37C without the wind chill so we were pretty bundled up and pretty cold, but some frozen tears there,” he said, noting she said yes.

“With the aurora itself, the light was beaming. Hopefully some of it made it inside that diamond … so we can take it home and she’ll have it in there forever.”

Ogilvie said Lacey was able to pick the shape of the diamond she wanted for a ring, with enough left over for a smaller diamond for a necklace. She was allowed to cut the rough diamond and polish it.

The process “was just way more fun and way more involved and kind-of original,” Ogilvie said, adding he’s thankful to everyone who helped make the proposal a success.

“Here, everything is made with so much love. They care about you and they’re so passionate about what they do.”

Ogilvie said he and Lacey had a great time in Yellowknife and hope to come back to visit in the future. Along with seeing the aurora and getting engaged, they also went dog sledding, visited the Snowcastle, learned about Dene traditions and met many locals.

“Everything really was a very interesting experience for us and eye-opening as well.” he said.

“I don’t think for many people, in Winnipeg at least, Yellowknife is a top destination in their minds, but I would encourage them to definitely go and check it out because it is a lot of fun.”

Meet cute

While Ogilvie may have not won The Bachelorette Canada while he was a contestant on season one, he said he found “the one” in Las Vegas in 2019.

Ogilvie was in the city for a bachelor party when he spotted Lacey, who is from Minnesota and was visiting Las Vegas as part of a road trip, at the Flamingo casino.

“I saw her about 200 feet away in the casino, belly laughing with her friend, just goofing around, and I thought: I need to say hi to them,” he recalled.

Ogilvie said he and Lacey “had a ton of fun” laughing, talking and spending time together during their short time in Las Vegas. He said they continued talking once they both returned home, he travelled to Minnesota to visit her, and they were together long-distance during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Eventually, Lacey became a permanent resident of Canada and moved to Winnipeg to live with Ogilvie.

“We got to do all the things that we wanted to do, like go for walks and really appreciate the simple things like that,” he said.

Lacey is currently studying to be a nurse, while Ogilvie works as a firefighter paramedic.