CASSIE & MAIA'S SURPRISE ENGAGEMENT 'SHE SAID YES'

The Apprentice Aotearoa star's getting ready to marry the Foot ball Ferns legend

- Jo Bailey

Forget roses, Champagne and grand gestures - when reality TV powerhouse Cassie Roma proposed to Football Ferns legend Māia Jackman on the former athlete's 50th birthday, it all went down at the top of the stairs.

The couple was at their Auckland home, getting ready to take Maia's 10-year-old daughter Kaea to basketball practice, when Cassie, 44, caught Māia completely off guard by popping the question.

Māia smiles, “It was such a low-key proposal, I thought Cassie was kidding to start, but then I realised she was serious!”

Māia says she's excited to be walking down the aisle for the first time with the Celebrity Treasure Island and The Apprentice Aotearoa star.

“I’ve been engaged twice but not married,” Māia explains. “It feels super-right with Cassie. At our age, we've done a lot of inner work, and we understand what's good and what's not.”

The proposal may have been unconventional, but it was the perfect time to make things official, with the couple still glowing after Maia’s intimate birthday celebrations with whānau and friends the night before.

Cassie shares, “It wasn’t a big, showy Instagram proposal. We have nothing to prove to anyone. It was just Māia and me in the moment.”

The happily engaged lovebirds first met 15 years ago through mutual friend Sarah Gregorius, who was Cassie's “work wife” and Māia’s teammate on the Football Ferns. At the time, Cassie was in the first of her two former marriages, but meeting Māia left a lasting impression.

Cassie recalls, “I used to drop Sarah off at trainings and would see Maia. One day in Whitianga, Māia, Sarah and I took a picture together, which I posted online. Every year, it'd pop up as a Facebook Memory and I'd think, 'I wonder what she’s up to?’”

Then in November last year, the pair was finally reacquainted at a star-studded speakers workshop.