Robin, Will You Marry Me?

The moment Robin Burisek walked into in Plainfield and saw pink-and-white ribbons tied to two bar stools, she knew Tuesday was not just any normal date night.

“Have a seat,” said Erik Lanphier, the man of her dreams.

Her hands shook. She couldn’t eat the mushroom appetizer they’d shared on their first date, a blind date, on those very bar stools, nearly two years ago. 

“I have something else to show you,” he said, and led her around the corner where friends and family gathered around tables amid pink-and-white balloons and streamers.

Uptown owner Jason Gruben turned down the jukebox. The female waitresses and bartenders couldn’t help themselves and stopped working, huddling together for a look-see.

Robin's eyes went wide as she panned the room, recognizing faces and mouthing “hello” as Erik led her front and center, hand in hand.

“We met here in 1999,” he began.

“2009,” Robin sweetly corrected with a tender smile.

“It started with a bunch of sarcastic e-mails,” Erik said about meeting Robin on match.com. “I liked her spunk.”

The emails led to the first date at Uptown in November 2009.

“When she walked in the door, our eyes met and there was no question,” he said. “Our relationship has been unbelievable ever since.”

Then he knelt down, choked back a tear and proposed.

“Yes!” Robin said instantly, and then grabbed him up for a kiss and hug as soon as he placed the ring on her finger.

Applause erupted from onlookers, friends and family, including Robin’s children Todd, 8, and Summer, 7, her mother Charlotte Morris, Erik’s daughters Breena, 18, and Whitney, 16, and his mother Karen Claffey.

The couple plans to be married in the spring on a Caribbean cruise.

“The proposal couldn’t have been more heartfelt,” Robin said later. “Erik is such a sweet, sentimental guy. He is romantic and puts a lot of effort into everything, and this is an example of how much he cares about me.”

“I’ve wanted to propose here for about a year,” Erik said. “Jason [Gruben] and I have been friends a while. Jason and I put it into action.”

The other most romantic thing Erik has ever done, Robin said, was creating a Valentine’s Day video in 2010 with roses of varying color to convey their courtship, from yellow roses for friendship to red roses for the first time he said, “I love you.”

Erik, a manager at a waste water utility in Glen Ellyn, said he was initially attracted to Robin’s “personality, smile and radiance” and those “feisty” emails.

“You have the whole Internet,” he said of match.com, “and I met somebody who lived four minutes from me and worked 10 minutes from where I worked.”

Mr. Right was just a bar stool away for other couples, too.

“Love has blossomed here a few times,” said Uptown owner Steve Gruben, who was honored to host a proposal party but missed the actual popping of the question, tending bar while his staff was drawn to the big moment.

“It’s a happening place to find somebody,” said Debbie Heavens, a friend and neighbor of Erik and Robin’s who met her husband, Craig Heavens, at Uptown four years ago. Robin and Erik attended the Heavens’ April wedding in Mexico.

Erik’s brother, Ed Lanphier, met his fiancée Heather Reynolds standing in line at a bar in Chicago when he broke her toe.

“He fell pretty hard pretty quick,” Ed Lanphier said of his brother’s beginning relationship with Robin.

“They’re exactly alike,” Reynolds added. “They have the same likes, personalities and idiosyncrasies. They’re both outdoorsy and like water skiing and diving.”

Friends Eleni and Brian Filippi, of Yorkville, agreed.

“They are definitely a good match,” she said.

“And they’re fun to be around,” he added.

“She gushes over him,” said Gina Buttimer, a Plainfield resident who works with Robin at PNC Mortgage in Downers Grove. “He always thinks of her, from the small stuff to the big. They really support one another in everything.”

As friends gave the scoop on the happy couple’s story, Robin and Erik circled the room, making sure to chat with each and every guest, a prelude to their wedding day.

“It’s exciting to think about life with him,” Robin said. “Every morning he makes coffee and brings it to me and gives me a kiss. Every night he tells me, ‘Good night, beautiful,’ and has never missed a night.”