Last week, Middlebury’s Susie McGovern charmed Seven Days readers by proposing to her longtime boyfriend, Darin Gates, on the cover of our Love & Marriage Issue. The stunt captivated Vermonters on social media and even inspired its own Reddit thread. Seven Days received numerous emails inquiring about the result. The paper’s internal channels were similarly bustling as we awaited word on how it went. In short, it was probably the most anticipated “Will they/won’t they?” drama in these parts since Ross and Rachel.
Well, wonder no more: Darin said yes.
The morning the issue hit newsstands, Susie, coordinating with a Seven Days delivery driver, snagged several copies from a Middlebury store while Darin was at work. Her plan was to surprise him when he got home. She spent the day cutting confetti and making origami hearts, which she scattered on a table alongside copies of the paper, photos, candles and flowers.
When Darin arrived from work later that day, Susie didn’t say a word. But Darin did: “Yes.”
“The plan was just to surprise him with the paper,” Susie recalled in a Monday interview with Seven Days. “I didn’t even plan on verbally asking, so the paper was quite literally, like, the entire proposal. And it was just perfect.”
“I was dumbfounded,” Darin added.
Incredibly, Darin, who works at Hannaford in Middlebury, went the entire day without seeing the paper or catching wind about it from friends or coworkers. “She told me not to go to the break room that day,” he recalled, noting that there are often copies of Seven Days around. “But she never said why. Now I know.”
Susie, 29, and Darin, 27, are both from Indiana. They met there as interns at an environmental consulting firm and started dating soon after, in 2019. The couple moved to Vermont two years ago to be closer to Darin’s grandmother and because the vibe of the Green Mountains suits them more than that of the Midwest, they said.
“We like the environment here,” said Susie, who works remotely as a water science and sustainability specialist for the Hoosier Environmental Council.
Many of the couple’s friends and family are in Indiana and were delighted from afar by their unusual engagement. Local reaction has been similarly heartwarming, they said, if somewhat more subtle.
“It’s been cool seeing [the paper] in the stands,” Susie said, adding that she’s wondered if people would notice her in public. “Nobody has said anything to me in particular, but there’s a few places that I go often, and I feel like I’m getting bigger smiles from the people who work there.”
The couple said they plan to get married at a courthouse this month or next, followed by a wedding party in a year or so, possibly in Indiana, though they’ll likely eschew a ceremony. “We’re a little nontraditional,” Darin said.
For proof that’s true, look no further than the couple’s paper-heart engagement rings, which Susie made — a nod to the Taylor Swift song “Paper Rings.” They do plan to get proper rings eventually.
Asked what she loves most about her fiancé, Susie described Darin as a “very thoughtful and sweet individual.”
“He’s gentle and kind, and a lot of men are not,” she said. “And he’s very emotionally intelligent, which I also really love.”
“Susie’s very caring,” Darin said of his fiancée. “And just when I think I know a lot about her, she brings out another side that I’ve never seen. She’s always able to surprise me in different ways.”
Like, for example, proposing marriage on the cover of Seven Days.
“Yeah,” Darin said, chuckling. “That’s a small one.”
This article appears in Love & Marriage Issue • 2026.
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