I got engaged to my holiday hookup after two days

A young couple got engaged two days after meeting on vacation — and they’re still married 11 years later.

Shari Thorpe, 33, and Ryan Thorpe, 33, spotted each other from across the pool while on vacation in Gran Canaria, Spain, in July 2011, according to South West News Service.

“I remember telling my friend to put her sunglasses on, so she could spy on him. I instantly thought he was good-looking,” Shari admitted to SWNS.

“It turns out Ryan was eyeing me up, too, and told his friend he was with I was the girl he was going to marry.”

The pair first spoke later that evening at the local karaoke bar where Ryan and his friends joked that the demolition worker was an up-and-coming singer.

“He was actually really good,” Shari said, adding that Ryan belted out a song by the Irish pop group Westlife.

The two Brits instantly clicked and had an undeniable connection, according to SWNS.

Shari and Ryan met up at the karaoke bar again the next night — and he popped the question. His friends thought he was “mental” for proposing, but he couldn’t deny his attraction.

“I had instant feelings for her that I’d never felt before,” said Ryan.

Shari initially thought the proposal was a joke.

“I just said, ‘Go on then,’ not really realizing he was serious. Then he came out with a ring the next day,” she said. “But I couldn’t not go for it, there was something about him.

“I just thought, ‘Why not?’ We had so much chemistry, and it just felt like I had to go for it,” the beautician added. “I’ve never looked back.”

After their vacation, the two returned to their separate homes in England — located 300 miles apart — to tell their friends and family the shocking news.

“I don’t think it really registered with them,” she admitted. “Lots of friends and family thought it would just be a fling and that we wouldn’t last.”

But when Ryan came to Newcastle to visit his fiancée, he quickly won over Shari’s crowd. After six months of dating, Shari took the next step and moved into Ryan’s home in Odiham, Hampshire.

“It was all so fast but felt so right,” she said.

Keeping up with the quick timeline of their relationship, Shari became pregnant with the couple’s first child a few months after moving in together. They welcomed Cayden in February 2012.

“We were young, but we both wanted a family and to be married, so we didn’t see why we needed to wait,” Shari explained. “I think friends and family were skeptical when we got engaged so fast, but as soon as they saw us together and we had Cayden together, they could see how perfect we were.

“We’re both the type of people that just goes for it, and I am so glad I did.”

That summer, they returned to Spain to celebrate all that had happened within the year: meeting, getting engaged, moving in together and having a child.

“The locals at the bar remembered who we were, so it was really sweet,” Shari said.

After saving up for their big day, Shari and Ryan finally tied the knot in August 2015. Ryan serenaded his wife with the same Westlife song he sang for her the first night they met.

The Thorpe’s have since welcomed two more boys, Curtis, in October 2016, and Cilian, in May 2021. They plan to bring their boys to Spain one day to show them where their parents first met and fell in love.

“I think knowing people thought it would just be a fling, it pushed us to prove them wrong and make it work,” Ryan said. “It’s crazy now looking back on memories and how far we have come.”

Shari agreed: “Eleven years later and we’re still going strong.”