In a flurry of hugs and kisses, Chelsie Deans said "Yes!" to James Macklin, whose proposal in the newspaper was the prize in The Tribune's contest to find someone willing to pop the question on Valentine's Day.

Macklin, 21, set up his proposal this morning at a IHOP in Riverton. The pair sat next to each other in a booth, cuddling and discussing Valentine's plans. A Tribune staff writer and photographer were deep in stealth mode, eating breakfast at nearby tables and waiting to document the proposal.

Macklin pulled out today's Tribune, casually flipping through each section.

"Hey, this looks like an interesting story," he said, handing 20-year-old Deans the Outdoors section, its cover topped by a photo of him holding out a ring box.

She gasped after reading the banner headline. Macklin then got out of the booth and knelt next to her, proffering a white-gold band with a princess-cut diamond.

They both got a little teary.

"We've been talking about marriage for a while, so I knew it was coming, but I didn't know it was today. I'm so shocked and happy - so happy!" Deans said.

The couple met through a mutual friend in 2005 at Macklin's birthday party.

"I kept coming up to talk to her, but she wouldn't talk to me," Macklin said. "I think our first real conversation was over a game of Trivial Pursuit a few weeks later."

Soon, they were close friends. At the time, Deans was a freshman at Utah State University and Macklin worked in Salt Lake City, so she drove down every weekend from Logan just to hang out.

"At first it seemed like it was going to be a damper in what I hoped was the begining of a great friendship, but . . . being apart made us realize how much we enjoyed spending time with one another," Macklin wrote in his 400-word essay for The Tribune contest.

"I think we'll get married in the fall, Oct. 25, because it was the day we first kissed," Deans said.

For now, the couple will continue to work and attend school. Macklin works security at the Salt Lake City International Airport while majoring in biomedical engineering at Salt Lake Community College. He plans to become a surgeon. Deans is a pharmacy technician and a business student at SLCC and wants to be a drug rep.

"I just couldn't believe it, that he wanted to go to breakfast so early," Deans joked. "But the whole thing was perfect."

After all, what's better than love with a side of pancakes?