NUTLEY, NJ — Nutley native Daniel Del Tufo and Julia Kallmerten took their relationship to new heights earlier this year, when Del Tufo proposed to Kallmerten atop the Memorial Bridge in Portsmouth, N.H.
The two civil engineers met at the University of New Hampshire, where Del Tufo enrolled after graduating from Nutley High School in 2011. The two have been together for five years and have each worked on projects relating to the Memorial Bridge.
This made it the perfect place for a proposal.
“The Memorial Bridge in Portsmouth, N.H., is an iconic and historical landmark,” Del Tufo told the Nutley Journal. “People from all over the area recognize it, just like you recognize the George Washington Bridge. I wanted to do something that Julia would remember forever — like she was going to forget anyway? — and in a way that was original.”
In an uplifting show of love, Del Tufo — in cahoots with the New Hampshire Department of Transportation — planned for Kallmerten and him to be on the bridge’s lift span when it was raised to its maximum height.
“After I got the idea, I called the state Department of Transportation and asked to be put in contact with the commissioner; I wrote her an email explaining what I wanted to do. I effectively walked in the front door and asked to ride the bridge. Frankly, I was surprised when the response was positive,” Del Tufo said. “Afterwards, the representative from the state said, ‘You are the first and the last people to do this.’”
Now, in order to get Kallmerten in place, Del Tufo needed to be a bit sneaky.
“I told Julia that I was to ride the bridge for work on Saturday afternoon. My company has numerous ongoing projects on the river, so a bird’s-eye view of them all was not a wild story. Julia takes great photos and I asked her if she would help me out,” Del Tufo said. “So she thinks that us riding on the bridge on a professional level, required by work, is super cool, and is excited.
“We met the bridge operators, donned our hard hats and safety vests — safety first — and stood on the center span waiting for it to rise 100 feet in the air,” he continued. “At the top, Julia got to work snapping pictures of the Piscataqua River. A few minutes go by while I’m figuring out the script before I knelt on the centerline of the roadway.”
Just as the location of the proposal was anything but ordinary, so was the question itself, with Del Tufo asking: “Will you aggravate me for the rest of my life? Will you marry me?”
According to Kallmerten, the proposal was the cherry on top of getting to ride the lift span.
“At first I didn’t suspect anything out of the ordinary,” Kallmerten told the Nutley Journal. “I was excited to ride the span of the bridge, and it wasn’t for a few seconds after he got down on one knee that my brain processed what was happening. Of course the answer was a no-brainer; I had already decided I was spending the rest of my life with this man long before he asked.”
After she said yes, Del Tufo signaled to their families, who were on the ground waiting to celebrate with the happy couple.
“I had privately coordinated them to be there to further surprise Julia,” Del Tufo said.
And now the couple is planning their wedding, which might be difficult, as Del Tufo has now set the bar pretty high for future milestones.
“I expect all future propositions to be on a fascinating piece of infrastructure or just generally very high in the air,” Kallmerten joked.
Photos Courtesy of Daniel Del Tufo
Nutley native raises the bar with lofty wedding proposal added by Yael Katzwer on
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