SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Serendipity comes to mind when describing Sean Whitaker's engagement to Jennifer Moores. The couple who have been together for a year and bought a house last summer, have been renovating it and were taking things one step at a time.

Jennifer Moores and Sean Whitaker hold on to a diamond he won at the Geoscience Forum last week. Whitaker used the diamond to propose to her. - Adrian Lysenko/NNSL photo

"We wanted to get engaged when we have a handle on our finances," said Moores.

But things got fast-tracked when Whitaker won a diamond from BHP Billiton's Ekati Diamond Mine while attending the Geoscience Forum last Thursday.

"It was going to happen either way, it just ups the time," he said.

Whitaker who works as the laboratory manager for ALS Environmental in Yellowknife was attending the forum and knew about the .37 carat Polar Bear brand diamond being raffled away, which the couple estimates is valued at "a few thousand dollars." The couple even joked about winning it.

But soon Whitaker found out he had been picked randomly out of the more than 770 people who attended the mining conference.

"I didn't believe it," said Whitaker. "It was just meant to be."

Moores found out from colleagues who were in attendance what her fiance's expression was when he won the prized rock.

"They said he looked like a deer in headlights," said Moores. "He walked straight out and got into his vehicle."

She got a call from him asking her to come outside of her office at the Indian and Northern Affairs building.

"I had no idea," said Moores. "I thought there was something wrong with our house."

In the parking lot outside the office Whitaker proposed with the diamond, minus a band.

"Apparently he said I started choking and then started to cry," said Moores. "A few seconds later I realized that I (hadn't) answered."

After some tears Moores said yes and both of them returned back to their jobs.

"It was a surreal couple of hours, I had to go back to work and ship samples," said Whitaker. "I was sort of in a daze, I vaguely remember sending stuff south."

As for the date of the wedding the couple doesn't have anything planned yet.

"We have no idea," said Moores. "Weddings are expensive."

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