From a proposal with unexpected nudity to sparks flying at the supermarket, you never know when or where Cupid’s arrow will strike.

As lovebirds across the county celebrate Valentine’s Day, here reporter James Pallant retells the romantic, bizarre and funny stories of how five Kent couples first fell for each other…

‘I thought he was dying - he was actually proposing!’

By Kathryn’s telling, Reece always fancied her in secondary school - Ursuline College in Westgate-on-Sea - but she wasn’t interested back then.

It was only years later, after Kathryn split up with the biological father of her daughter, Willow, that she and Reece started dating.

“He was supposed to take me to a nice restaurant for dinner but it was closed, so we ended up in KFC in Dover sharing a bargain bucket,” recalled Kathryn, 32.

Fortunately, Reece upped his game for the proposal four years later, renting a room at The Inn on the Lake in Gravesend.

“It’s a beautiful setting, lots of greenery, quite a popular place for couples to get engaged,” continued Kathryn.

“We were outside and he’d lit some candles. Now, Reece isn’t very romantic and I thought, ‘This is odd’.

“He got down on one knee and started this speech about how much he loves me, and my first thought was, ‘Oh my god, he’s dying’ - because this was so unlike him.

“Then he got this ring out and I said, ‘Oh thank God for that,’ because I thought it was going to be bad news.”

Of course, Kathryn said yes, and two years later the couple were married at Smiths Court Hotel in Cliftonville.

The pair wrote their own vows and Willow recited a reading, causing more than a few tears to be shed among the guests.

“Our wedding was very emotional - even the registrar said she’s never done such an emotional wedding,” said Kathryn.

“It was the most beautiful day.”

In 2023, Reece adopted Willow. And after battling fertility issues, the couple welcomed double-rainbow baby Kally into the world in 2024.

Kathryn and Reece Kallmeier live together in Margate. They have now been together for 10 years.

Kathryn’s love note to Reece:

Reece is a wonderful father to both our children.

He is the most selfless person I have ever met and will do anything to make anybody in his family happy.

He is a gentle, sweet, amazing husband and the love of my life.

An unexpected crowd of nudists

Ryan Covill and Georgia Carpenter first met on Xbox Live, playing Rocket League.

He naively thought he would need to “take it easy” on a girl playing video games.

That was before she easily and repeatedly beat him at that and every other game she challenged him to.

He only found out they lived around the corner from each other when they serendipitously met at Hollywood Bowl in Rochester.

“We decided that we’d go to watch a movie,” said Ryan.

“The cinema was showing Black Panther so we impromptu went to go see it on a random Tuesday evening.”

Ryan and Georgia - both in their early 20s - found they got along well in real life too and began dating.

Back then, she was studying graphic design at the University for the Creative Arts in Canterbury and he was working a “dead-end job” but was curious about photography.

“She found out I liked taking photos and said she could rent out a camera for me from the uni for me,” remembered Ryan.

“I got absolutely hooked and over the next few years, photography became my full-time job.”

Three years after they had first met, Ryan was ready to pop the big question and spent a year planning a picturesque engagement on the Croatian island of Vis.

“I had done research and selected this beach that was really beautiful. I told Georgia we were just doing a photoshoot - as we often did.

“We rented mopeds and drove to the spot I had picked out. I set up my camera and I asked her to climb up onto this rock.

“When she turned around to see me down on one knee proposing she was so shocked that she let out a loud scream.”

Ryan says Georgia is usually a quiet and reserved person, so her reaction stunned him so much that he completely forgot the speech he had planned to give.

The gleeful outburst also drew the attention of the roughly 40 stark naked sunbathers on the adjacent sands.

Even with his months of planning, Ryan had unknowingly arranged proposing to his bride-to-be on a nudist beach.

Ryan and Georgia live together in Hempford near Gillingham where they still regularly play video games, now on side-by-side gaming PCs.

They are planning a destination wedding in Greece next September.

Ryan’s love note to Georgia:

To Georgia, I want to say thank you. She is an incredible, beautiful person who has got an amazing amount of patience for me.

In photography, she showed me a world I didn’t even know existed and enabled me to make a career out of it.

She’s been unbelievably supportive over the last four years, working two difficult jobs while I quit mine to pursue photography.

She is an amazing person who I love.

‘This is a colleague announcement: I love you’

Of all the places to fall in love, the aisles of a supermarket might not seem the most romantic.

But as Lauren Emerson and Glen Shute came to learn in 2017, sometimes Cupid’s arrows strike in unexpected settings.

They had both taken jobs at Asda in Dartford thinking it would only be temporary.

She had been laid off after the dental practice she managed closed down, while he needed a steady paycheque while striving to become a professional actor.

Having already been working at the store a while when Lauren was hired, Glen was tasked with training her on the tills.

Lauren says when she first laid eyes on Glen, she thought he was handsome, if a bit goofy.

“I was trying to be professional, but I did think he was good-looking,” said Lauren, 32.

“I remember his first words to me were: ‘Who’s this then?’”

The pair quickly became friends and as time went on, Lauren says co-workers and even customers began to notice a romance growing between them.

Glen, now 31, eventually asked her out on a dinner date at Nando’s in Bluewater. Years later, Lauren still has the receipt from that evening.

“I got a chicken wrap and he got half a chicken,” she said.

“I remember thinking that’s quite courageous for a first date because you’ve got to get quite greasy for that - and he did and made a right mess, and I thought he’s the one.”

Within a “supermarket family of support” their relationship grew, and Lauren says it wasn’t long before they were using the shop’s tannoy system to express their love.

“If I did a service call announcement, I would say like: ‘Thanks Glen, love you’, and sometimes he’ll write me love letters and leave them for me to find in the office.”

When lockdown scuppered Glen’s plans for an engagement trip abroad, he persevered.

“He wanted to propose to me in Italy, but because we couldn’t go he said he would bring Italy to me,” recalled Lauren.

“He surprised me with a proposal in my mom’s garden - first he gave me a Cornetto, and had some Italian music playing.

“And then he had printed off little pictures of Italian sights and stuck them up around the garden and gave me a little tour with facts about each place before asking me to marry me.”

Five years on, Lauren and Glen still work alongside each other in Asda and are enjoying a long engagement. In 2022 they welcomed a son, Roman, into the world.

Lauren’s love note to Glen

I fell in love with you Glen because you are so beautifully and unapologetically yourself.

Watching you be the most amazing dad to Roman fills my heart with more love than I can express.

We are truly blessed to have you in our lives.

‘He’ll do for Christmas’

It wasn’t love at first sight, but after Shirley was introduced to Micheal in December 1972, she decided he would at least serve as an adequate date for that year’s Christmas parties.

They had been brought together by a mutual acquaintance - Micheal’s aunt - who thought they would make a good match.

“We were invited to tea, which I suppose in those days wasn’t so unusual. I remember I wore a red dress,” said Shirley.

“We got on quite well, but I would say I wasn’t over-enamoured.

“My parents asked afterwards: ‘What do you think about him?’ My reply was: ‘He’ll do for Christmas’, I didn’t say which Christmas…”

Less than two years after they first met, Shirley and Micheal were married in Mersham Church, just outside Ashford.

“It was very much a home-grown wedding, as they often were back then,” remembered Shirley.

“The flowers were done by the local florist, the wedding car was the village taxi and I sewed my own wedding dress, three bridesmaids dresses and an outfit for the page boy myself.”

For her bridal flowers Shirley had red roses, and says on every Valentine’s Day since, Micheal has bought her a matching bouquet.

A few months after the wedding, they bought a house in Willesborough, where they still live today.

They have now spent 52 Christmases together.

Shirley’s love note to Micheal

You are my best friend and although I don’t say it as often as I should, I still love you and always will and hope we will spend many more Christmases together.

Smacked on the first date

The first time Sarah was supposed to meet Wayne for a date, she got cold feet and bailed at the last minute.

They had connected through an online dating website but after a difficult previous relationship, Sarah says Wayne seemed “too good to be true”.

A few weeks later, she found the courage to reach out to him again and they met for lunch at the Bull pub in Penenden Heath.

“I was so nervous,” recalled Sarah.

“He came across really confident, but not cocky and honestly I couldn’t take my eyes off him.”

Although Sarah was a bit shy at first, the ice was broken after they discovered a mutual hatred for cucumber and dared each other to eat some.

It was summertime, they were sitting outside in the beer garden and the date was going well until an uninvited guest arrived.

“A wasp flew near us,” continued Sarah.

“I grabbed a wooden spoon and swatted at it, but accidentally swatted Wayne.

“I thought, ‘Well, there’s no way he will want to see me again now.’”

But in fact, they went out again that very night - for dinner at The Hare and Hounds in Ashford.

The same week, the pair moved in together and over the following weeks and months love bloomed.

Sadly, less than a year into their relationship Sarah was diagnosed with cancer.

But it was in these difficult circumstances that Wayne showed the true depths of his love.

“I gave him the option to walk, but he didn’t,” said Sarah.

“Because of the cancer I have not been able to work since, I have had more than 30 surgeries and he has stuck by me every single time.

“He’s cared for me and never expected anything in return.”

Sarah Hope and Wayne Davies, both aged 49, have now been together for ten years and have a family and home together in Kingsnorth, Ashford.

Sarah’s love note to Wayne

We are so lucky to have each other. Because of our past, it's made us so close and we have a mutual understanding of what a healthy relationship is meant to be .

He truly makes me feel so special every single day. He's my human and my best friend.

I will always thank my lucky stars I met him - he literally saved my life.