A bride-to-be was horrified when her boyfriend's perfect proposal quickly headed south after the couple stopped for a sandwich at M&S.
Hairdresser Lydia Wagstaff, 26, was over the moon when her partner Henry, 29, proposed to her in the Lake District during a romantic hiking break earlier this year.
But disaster struck two days later when the couple stopped off for a quick butty at M&S on their way home.
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When Lydia went to brush her shoulder, she accidentally flung her vintage diamond ring into the air.
"I'm only just able to start laughing about it," said Lydia, who knew her ring was too big but was so excited she couldn't wait for it to be resized before putting it on.
When the couple went to the Lake District in June, Lydia had a feeling that Henry might pop the question.
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"I kept air dropping pictures of this one ring a few months before he asked me to marry him," she said.
"I didn't expect him to cotton on, so I was thrilled. It's an antique ring with an oval central stone and a smaller oval one either side of it."
Still, she never expected it to fly off when she wiped some pollen from her shoulder.
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"I had this really big bouquet of flowers and there was pollen from them on my arm," she said.
"I think it was just absolute chance that as I was wiping it off, my hand was in the direction of the air and my finger must have just locked in a perfect straight line and the ring flew over the car park wall."
In a split second, her romantic dream had become a nightmare, as they both stared at the ring sparkling from the dirty gutter several floors below completely out of reach.
Lydia said: "It all seemed to happen in slow motion. I screamed, 'My ring!', and went into panic mode trying to figure out how to get down to that level."
With help from an enthusiastic car park employee, the trio devised a plan to retrieve the ring.
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Lydia said: "The car park man called his boss, then went down to a window parallel to the ring.
"He actually had to go into someone's office to open it, but he managed to swing it open further."
She added: "He was going to try sticking a magnet to a stick, but my ring is platinum and when I googled it, I discovered that it's not magnetic.
"We were worried he was going to push it into the gutter further, but he used tape sticky side up on a pole to get it back.
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"It was a pretty tense moment, but he got it back and we were so grateful."
Too terrified to watch as the helpful man poked about in the gutter, Lydia feared her precious ring would be lost forever.
"I couldn't watch," she said. "It was so stressful, but luckily he rescued it in the end."
After the kerfuffle, she was too traumatised to put the jewellery back on and left it in its box for two weeks.
She added: "I didn't feel comfortable talking about it at all initially.
"I'm slowly able to joke about it more now, but only because I got it back.
"By the time we get married, I hope it'll just be a funny story!"
Featured Image Credit: PA Real LifeTopics: proposal