90 Day Fiancé star Ed “Big Ed” Brown is telling the story of how he proposed to fiancée Porscha Raemond within 24 hours of meeting each other.
Big Ed, 59, “felt the sparks” with Raemond, 29, his “dream girl,” when he first met her at Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop in Plantation, Florida, during a fan meet-and-greet, he told Page Six in an interview published on Thursday, September 19.
“So I’m there carrying out these big sandwiches with sparklers. It’s crazy. And in walks this beautiful Italian dish. Her name is Porscha,” he recalled. “She comes up, gives me the warmest hug. … She gives me a big kiss on the cheek.”
Charmed, Big Ed invited Raemond to dinner the next day at YOLO restaurant in Fort Lauderdale. He decided that she was marriage material, and with a friend’s support, popped the question — fashioning an engagement ring out of a paperclip.
“I get down on one knee and everyone goes crazy. The restaurant was freaking out,” he told Page Six, adding, “I said, ‘Look I never want to let you go. I think I met The One. I want to marry you.’ And she said, ‘Yes,’ and we hugged and we kissed.”
He continued, “[We were] kissing and smooching the whole night. I’m in love.”
He revealed to the outlet that he and his future wife had not yet consummated their romance, and aim to take things “slow.”
While his daughter Tiffany and other family members are “freaking out” about his spontaneous decision, Big Ed said that “in my heart … I can’t wait.”
Us Weekly confirmed the engagement on Monday, September 16, with a source revealing that Big Ed had asked the restaurant’s manager “to get him a paperclip and he made her a ring out of it .He got down on one knee and [Raemond] accepted his proposal.”
Ed has previously been engaged to Liz Woods and Rose Vega, and both relationships were chronicled on 90 Day Fiancé. (He shares Tiffany with ex-wife Sandra Heckman.)
Ed revealed to Us in May that he was starting to date again following his split from Woods. (Ed popped the question to Woods in November 2021 but called off the wedding during an episode of 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After?, which aired in April.)
“It’s still weird because even the word ‘date,’ it has a negative connotation because when you date someone, you’re basically pretending to be somebody else,” Ed said. “So what I’m focusing on [is] developing friendships. I have a handful of people [who] I’ve met through the industry that we go to lunch together, we go to Top Golf, we go to happy hours together. And so, I’m patiently waiting for the right person to come along.”
