A man proposed to his partner with a stunning engagement ring. She returned the favor with his dream Rolex.
It's time that men start wearing engagement rings — or engagement Rolexes.
That's what Andrew Woolf did.
The 28-year-old property manager has had a storybook romance with his partner, Marielle Woolf. They met in 2018, got engaged in 2022, and later married in 2024.
That entire time, his wife Marielle, a 28-year-old school social worker, had a plan to show Andrew how grateful she was for their partnership.
"I always knew, from the second we started dating, that I wanted to give him a Rolex," she told Business Insider. "That is the male version of an engagement ring."
A match made in college
It was Marielle's last semester of college at SUNY Albany in 2018 when her best friend asked: "Are you ready to meet your husband?"
She said yes and agreed to meet Andrew, the fraternity brother of her friend's boyfriend, at a bar.
"We hit it off and haven't left each other's side since," she said. The couple now lives together in Connecticut.
By 2021, Andrew was certain he'd found the girl he wanted to marry. He saved money for a year, storing cash inside an envelope stuffed in his sock drawer, and later visited a family friend who works as a jeweler in New York's Westchester County.
"I came up with the very silly lie: I need to get my car serviced up in Westchester," he told BI. "But I forgot to turn my location off until I was actually at the jeweler."
Marielle, of course, knew he'd visited. Still, she had no idea that Andrew spent multiple sessions working to make a perfect ring, and that he'd later purchased it and hid the box inside a ski boot in their closet.
She was also completely surprised when he finally proposed to her on the beach in September 2022, followed by a party on Fire Island with their closest friends and family.
Andrew didn't just get the girl. He also got a designer watch.
For nearly a year before their September 2024 nuptials, Marielle had secretly been working on a project: securing Andrew's dream Rolex watch, a $7,750 Air-King.
She wanted to show appreciation for her engagement ring, Andrew's proposal, and every other special moment they'd shared thus far.
"It was a full-time job trying to get this Rolex," Marielle told BI.
Rolexes can be easier to buy than some other luxury watches. Still, the process isn't always quick. Rather than going online and adding one to your virtual shopping cart, shoppers must visit an authorized retailer, where they could end up on a waitlist alongside other interested buyers.
You can also turn to unofficial secondhand dealers. It's often a more expensive path, but one that can lead to more rare and coveted timepieces.
Marielle tapped her brother for help, connected with a broker in New York City, and put her name on every waitlist she could find — even for watches she wasn't as interested in, just to increase her chances of getting one.
"It's all about relationships," she said of the buying process. "I would make sure to visit the broker every time I was in the city, and I'd remember little things about them. I'd text them every so often to ask how they were doing and just check in. It took me almost a year being on waitlists and making that constant effort."
When she was finally offered one — the exact model her husband wanted — "on a random Tuesday," she left work early and picked it up two blocks from her then-fiancé's office.
Marielle told BI that she knew Andrew would feel terrible if she gave him the luxury timepiece when he didn't have something for her. So she suggested they exchange wedding gifts with a budget of $500 each.
He went over budget with a Cartier bracelet, and Marielle did the same with the Rolex.
She recently posted a video of the exchange on TikTok, where it's been viewed more than 745,000 times.
"I did not have any inkling that she would be getting me a watch, let alone a Rolex," Andrew said, adding that it almost felt like a second proposal — this time from Marielle to him. "I was genuinely shocked."
@mariellesarah He deserved his engagement ring moment too #rolex #weddingtiktok #weddinggift #couple #speechless ♬ original sound - Marielle
"When we got our wedding bands, I fell in love with one that was way out of our budget," Marielle recalled. "Andrew is so selfless; he got a less-expensive band so we could afford the wedding band I wanted, even though he already gave me the engagement ring of my dreams."
Kicking off a new tradition
In the comment section of Marielle's TikTok post, dozens of viewers have asked where they can purchase a Rolex for their partner.
The couple said they'd love to see this become a more common trend, where both people in a relationship are celebrated for getting engaged.
"I'll pass down my diamond ring one day to our kids, and he'll pass down the Rolex," Marielle said.
Of course, you don't need a luxury item to woo your partner.
"If you have the means to do something — on a similar scale or a smaller one — I think it shows true partnership," Andrew said. "Not only was one person able to save [money], keep a secret, plan, and execute [a proposal] beautifully, but both were able to do it for one another."
If you can swing a Rolex, though, your husband just might end up with the partner and watch of his dreams.
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