Engagement ring nearly lost forever in drone proposal fail

This proposal fail was two feet away from going very, very wrong.

Tristan McGann of Malibu, Calif., had a creative idea to propose to his girlfriend Stephanie. He would take her on a romantic excursion to Point Dume, and a drone would drop the ring into his hand from above just as Tristan dropped to one knee.

"I like drones. No one else had done like a drone ring drop," Tristan told Right This Minute. "I thought it would be a good idea."

But this proposal didn't go off without a hitch. When the electronic claw released the ring, it wasn't close enough for Tristan to catch it. It appeared to fall so far away that Stephanie can be heard saying, "It dropped something in the water."

At this point, Stephanie knew what Tristan was planning, having picked out the ring with him.

"He's proposing, and did we get insurance? That was going through my head," she remembered thinking, she told Right This Minute.

For 15 nerve-wracking minutes, the couple and their friends searched for the ring.

"Just sheer panic," Tristan recalled of his emotions. "I thought it had gone in the ocean. I thought it was lost forever."

Finally their friend Tara "found it perched on the cliff edge two feet away from going into the ocean," Tristan explained. "It was so lucky."

A very relieved Tristan then finished the proposal.

Though the couple just shared the video on YouTube this week, the proposal happened last year, and the couple is now married. In hindsight, they can appreciate how it turned out.

"It made for such a better story," Tristan said.