Photo: Jamie Bruce
Technically, Kyle Kuzma began planning his proposal to Winnie Harlow six months ago. But the idea for the proposal? That came in 2022, when the NBA player and model went to Turks and Caicos on vacation together for the first time. They decided to go for a sunset swim, and as the stars slowly became visible in the sky, Harlow told Kuzma that it was the best day of her entire life. He then knew it would be the perfect place to eventually get engaged.
Eventually, it turns out, was February 13, 2025. Under the guise of a long weekend getaway, Kuzma told Harlow that he’d planned a couple’s trip to the Caribbean island. While it felt more lavish than usual—Kuzma had chartered a private plane—Harlow just assumed he was being romantic for Valentine’s Day. (“You threw me off the scent,” she tells Kuzma, laughing, about his chosen date during a phone call with Vogue.) Harlow still didn’t suspect anything after she boarded and found that he had decorated the cabin with roses, balloons, chocolate, and Champagne. “I still had no idea what this was,” she says. “I was just like, ‘This is so cute for Valentine’s Day, oh my gosh!’”
But then Kyle asked her to sit down beside him. And once she did, he began to read a poem he had written. “For a split second in my head I thought, This would be so cute if this was an engagement,” says Harlow. “But I’m also not the type of person who wants to guess or wants to spoil a surprise. So it just was a fleeting thought in my head.”
It wasn’t until the poem’s last line—“Will you be my wife?”—that she realized her hunch was spot on. She said yes before Kuzma even got the chance to pull out the showstopper: an 8.5-carat oval-cut engagement ring with two baguette stones on the side.
Kuzma spent three months designing it himself. “I never really asked her what type of ring she liked or anything,” he says. “I just wanted to draw a picture of what I felt resembled her—something that was elegant, but very timeless and simplistic at the same time.”
Once they landed, Harlow went to call her sister. She didn’t pick up. Then, she went to call her mom—who told her she had no time to talk, then also abruptly hung up. Several minutes later, she understood why: when they walked into their villa, both her and Kuzma’s whole family were there to surprise them. He then led them out to the pool, where a DJ was playing “Let’s Get Married” by Jagged Edge and dinner was set up on the beach. Harlow changed out of her plane clothes (a red Skims silk set) and into a Blumarine dress to celebrate. Kyle, meanwhile, wore a Loro Piana throughout.
For the rest of the evening, they enjoyed a surf and turf dinner and lots of wine on the sand. And it turns out Kuzma had one more surprise in store for Harlow: fireworks. “We’re over the moon,” Harlow says.
This article was originally published on Vogue.com.
