ALMOST RUINED THE PROPOSAL?! ALEX TELLS ALL

“I literally wanted to go hide in a bush because I was buzzed.” That’s how Yoatzi Castro describes the moment she realized her casual girls’ brunch was actually a surprise proposal orchestrated by her partner, Alex. On this episode of Pretty, Not Smart, Yoatzi and her sister Louie sit down with Alex to unpack the full story behind the engagement—the planning, the near-disasters, and the emotional family conversations that almost didn’t happen.

The ask that almost didn’t happen

Alex had planned to propose in September, and he told Louie about it back in July during a drunken heart-to-heart in Vegas. But that advance notice came with complications. Louie had been burned before: she’d watched Yoatzi’s past partner dangle the idea of marriage as a manipulative tool, never following through. So when Alex told her his plan, she didn’t let herself get excited. “My body was just like, I don’t know if it’s gonna happen again,” she explains. She dissociated during the initial reveal and didn’t fully believe it until she saw the proposal happen in real time.

Alex, for his part, almost backed out of telling Louie at all. “I was like, what if I don’t actually do it in September?” he admits. He had a pattern of over-promising and under-delivering, and he didn’t want to add to that. But he decided to commit: “I said September, this is when I’m gonna make it happen, no matter what.”