Adam Marshall set a high bar with his romantic marriage proposal — with a little help from the Royal Bermuda Regiment.

Mr Marshall popped the question to his girlfriend Kim Bergeron while the Massachusetts couple were flying over Warwick Long Bay in a Blue Sky Flights aerial tour.

On the pink sand below them was the phrase “Will you marry me?”, written in carved pieces of tarpaulin, put together by five Regiment junior leaders led by Major Henry Campbell and Lieutenant Claire Lightbourne.

“When I saw that written in the sand I was just shocked,” said Ms Bergeron once the flight touched down.

“I think I may have started crying.”

Mr Marshall, who works as a paramedic, told The Royal Gazette that he and his new fiancée had been best friends since they met at school as 14-year-olds.

“I didn’t really talk a lot, and she basically kept coming over and talking to me every day until I responded,” he said.

Despite their closeness, the couple — who are both 32 years old — didn’t begin their romantic relationship until their late twenties.

“Our relationship has always been stellar. I’ve been very blessed,” he said.

After trying to think of a novel way to pop the question, and with the couple’s cruise ship holiday to Bermuda coming up, Mr Marshall stumbled across the Blue Sky Flights website and discovered that the company organised proposal packages.

“I thought that would be a really cool way to do it, so I kind of used the vacation as a way to hide the proposal,” he said.

Mr Marshall described the couple’s July vacation here as “one of the best experiences of my life”, and added that they were now considering getting married in Bermuda as well.

“Everybody on the island was just so friendly and welcoming, and we enjoyed roaming around. We had so much fun in Bermuda,” he said.

He also thanked Blue Sky Flights profusely for helping to arrange the proposal, especially after wind problems postponed the carefully planned flight by a day. In response, the company’s pilot and manager Heather Nicholds said: “It was such a special moment, and it was an honour to be part of it.”

The Bermuda Tourism Authority also played its role in ensuring everything came together, arranging a videographer on the ground to document the junior leaders’ work, while Blue Sky Flights provided a second camera in the cockpit to record the big moment.

BTA chief operating officer Karla Lacey said: “We are so grateful to the junior leaders and all Bermuda residents who go the extra mile to create memories like this for our visitors.

“These are the kinds of stories that set us apart from other destinations, and we’re particularly excited about this one because it was captured on video.”