I’ve been proposed to three times—that’s not the flex you think I think it is—and somehow, not a single one of them happened on the spire of the Empire State Building. But for fans of heights, peace, and trespassing, one future groom just raised the bar by asking for his partner’s hand in marriage 1,400 feet above New York City’s streets—and it seems she was expecting it because her nails aren’t just miraculously intact after climbing the spire but also beautifully polished.
As I’m writing this, Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus are in custody for as-yet-unannounced potential charges—whatever comes with climbing to the top of the fucking Empire State Building, I guess—so they may not be experiencing the typical engagement afterglow other couples enjoy. The couple, who apparently have a habit of scaling skyscrapers (much to my nausea), spent a sunny Wednesday afternoon just hangin’ out well above the antenna, unfurling a black flag with the Jimi Hendrix lyrics, “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” Great message, but holy crap, guys.
When the couple, who were initially wearing Batman-esque masks, started climbing down of their own volition, they paused on a still gut-churningly high platform, which is when Beerkus appeared to take a selfie stick out of his backpack. Once their perfect content-creation angle was secured, he proposed to Nikolau. It was then that I, watching the live helicopter footage on TV, immediately clocked the classic taking-pictures-of-my-new-ring pose.
And wouldn’t you know it? The couple must have had an assistant on the ground (literally), because a collaboration carousel went up on Instagram around 1 p.m., featuring photos of the proposal and—whaddaya know?—the ring and Nikolau’s manicure.
The long, almond-shaped nails appear to be polished in a glazed white shade with a raised silver cross on her middle finger. Her ring finger (of course) looks to be painted in a chromatic, pale blue, which seems to match the oval stone in her ring.
Lovely, yes, but I have questions. Most of them have nothing to do with her nails, but to keep things relevant to beauty journalism, I’ll stick to my nail-related questions. First: How did she climb in such long nails? I’m on week three of my relatively short gel extensions and I can barely type. Second: What on Earth are her extensions made of? Because damn, that’s durable!