Inside Victoria and David Beckham’s secret engagement – from dressing gown proposal to shock royal death
01.07.2024 - 07:35
/ ok.co.uk
David and Victoria Beckham had been dating for a year when it was announced in January 1998 that he had “put a ring on it”, making their union official. “As soon as I met Victoria, I knew I wanted to marry her, to have children, to be together always,” recalled David in his autobiography My Side. He proposed at Rookery Hall in Nantwich, Cheshire, where the couple were enjoying a romantic weekend together.
As the pair relaxed in their towelling robes, following a champagne dinner in their suite, David popped the question. Although he was confident that Victoria would say yes, when he got the answer he hoped for, David described the moment as “like an electric charge running up my spine”. “He went down on his knee and asked me to marry him,” wrote Victoria in her autobiography, Learning To Fly.
“I didn’t dare say anything to anybody.” Determined to keep their news a secret, they moved the bands they both wore on their right hands to their left, as a discreet symbol of their commitment. However, it wasn’t long before the press had spotted this, and photographers were camped outside Victoria’s family home.
This was all before she’d had the chance to tell anyone but her mum, Jackie, who commented, “It’s going to take something big to knock this off the front pages.” Her words were prophetic, because on the following day, 31 August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a car accident in Paris. Days later, as the Beckham and Adams families assembled to privately celebrate their engagement news, the mood was understandably sombre.