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This breaking news caught one local TV station anchor by surprise.
A “nervous wreck” Tennessee news reporter surprised his longtime anchor girlfriend by proposing to her over the weekend under the bright lights of their studio as she was taping a segment.
Typically calm and collected Riley Nagel popped the question to Cornelia Nicholson Sunday night while she was behind the anchor desk at WRCB-TV based in Chattanooga for what she thought was a news promo.
“Coming up right now we have the story of two journalists who just so happen to find love in the same industry,” Nicholson read from a teleprompter as she slowly began to realize what was happening. “News 3’s Riley Nagel joins us in the studio with a special report?”
Nagel appeared with a bouquet of roses as he gushed about his partner and talked about how they met at another station in Montana almost four years earlier.
“You’re always pushing me to be better in news and other aspects of my life and I thought it’d be fitting to ask you this question here since we met in news,” Nagel told her before dropping to a knee to ask her to marry him.
Nicholson, visibly shocked, said yes through tears and stuck her left hand out so he could slip the ring on her finger.
After the two kissed and embraced, Nagel could be seen letting out a huge sigh of relief.
“Remembering back he was like a nervous wreck,” Nicholson told The Post Tuesday. “His hands were shaking, I’ve never seen him be that nervous ever.”
The only other time Nagel was that nervous was the first day he and Nicholson worked together at a separate station, she said.
The clip of the joyful news, which has gone viral, was then shown on-air during the station’s 11 p.m. broadcast that Nicholson anchored and then again during the early morning show Monday.
Nicholson knew a proposal was coming, but never imagined it would happen in-studio.
“It didn’t even dawn on me that that would even be a reality,” she said.
Because the newly-engaged couple work busy, separate schedules, they haven’t had much time to reminisce on the made-for-TV moment yet.
“Just watching it back, it’s so cute,” Nicholson said. “But wow, I can’t believe you really did that, that’s crazy.”