No dance lessons needed! Dancing With the Stars‘ Sasha Farber pulled off one of the biggest surprises ever when he proposed to fellow pro Emma Slater during the ABC series on Tuesday, October 4. After she said yes — while they were still on cloud nine — the couple opened up about their engagement and wedding plans with Us Weekly.
Farber, 33, and Slater, 27, were close friends for two years before they started dating. They have been in a relationship for five years and recently bought a house together in L.A.
“It feels like the natural progression. My mum said to me once that marriage should feel natural and not like a surprise, it should feel expected because that’s when it’s right,” Slater told Us and other reporters at the DWTS taping. She added to Farber: “And it’s already felt like I’ve been your fiancée or your wife for years. So it feels really natural. Apart from the new heaviness of my arm, it feels really natural!”
The couple are in no rush to get married, though. “I don’t mind a long engagement,” Slater added. “I think a year’s nice.”
Farber was anxious to pop the question, but the sweet moment went off without a hitch. He got down on one knee after the pair danced to their song, Bruno Mars‘ “Just the Way You Are,” for the audience.
“He danced the whole dance with this [ring] in his pocket, and turns out lots of people in production knew and I didn’t know at all and they must have kept it a really good secret,” Slater told Us. “Wardrobe had to sew a pocket in his outfit and then I was wondering why I had a microphone. I was like, ‘I’m not going to talk. Why are they giving me a microphone?’ And they said, ‘Oh, Tom’s going to ask you a question.’ And I said, ‘Oh, yeah, OK.'”
Farber knew that Slater was “the one” years ago. “Probably three or four months after we met,” he told Us. “I was a little bit nervous when we were doing the dance, thinking that [the ring] would fall out of my pocket, thinking, This could go horribly wrong.”
It didn’t, of course. Slater broke down in tears when she realized what he had planned. But as it turns out, she already knew that the ring was going to be a pink sapphire.
“She actually went shopping and she picked it! I spoke to her sister and her sister told me where it was from — and I went there and bought it straight away,” Farber explained.
Slater added: “I actually really don’t like pink normally, but it’s the same color as my mom’s ring. And I like a vintage dusky rose color, which it is. The vintage-y style. And when I saw it, I really liked the color. … It’s like a wine color. I love it.”
