Andy Lee dishes on marriage proposal 10 years in the making

In their first interview as an engaged couple, Andy Lee and Rebecca Harding get real about what exactly took them so long.

In their first photo shoot and interview as a newly engaged couple, Andy Lee and Rebecca Harding open up about how the big moment unfolded – and get real about what exactly took them so long.

The loved-up pair are the cover stars on this week’s Stellar magazine, out today, and also feature as guests on the latest Something To Talk About podcast.

Comedian and presenter Lee explained that he’d known “for a long time” that he wanted to marry his girlfriend of 10 years.

“I think six, maybe to eight months [beforehand] was when I really started thinking about it. I think I knew for years. Then getting the ring, and hoping Bec liked it – that would have been the most nerve-racking part. And getting her there on time to the actual proposal,” he said.

Lee popped the question in May, proposing at the couple’s “new old house” – a derelict heritage-listed property in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn that he and Harding bought in 2021 for $8.5 million.

There was only one problem on the day: Harding was running late, and kept her nervous boyfriend waiting at the run-down property for more than an hour before she showed up.

“It doesn’t matter. The important thing is, we went home together,” she told Stellar.

Andy Lee and Bec Harding for Stellar.

The happy moment: The couple get engaged.

While they weren’t in the most glamorous surroundings, Lee had a proposal planned with real sentimental value: He handed her a napkin, a callback to their first meeting in a Melbourne cafe where she was working as a waitress and he wrote his contact details on a napkin for her.

“It was just happiness,” Harding said of the proposal.

“It’s such a nice feeling to know someone has gone and put all of this effort into something, to ask you to spend the rest of your life with them. I mean, we’d been dating for 10 years, so I kind of was like, maybe getting married is not for us. There was enough in our life that I knew he was serious about me.”

And Harding also spoke candidly about the external pressure she felt over the years for the couple to get engaged.

“Andy doesn’t like being told what to do. So in my mind, I was like, can everyone please stop pressuring him to propose? Because he’s not going to do it,” she confessed.

Find more from Stellar via Instagram @stellarmag or pick up a copy inside The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (VIC), The Sunday Mail (QLD) and Sunday Mail (SA).

Originally published as Andy Lee dishes on marriage proposal 10 years in the making