Santa Fe, New Mexico, 87501

A marriage proposal went awry when Reed Harris` girlfriend accidentally swallowed her engagement ring before he had the chance to propose.

Harris, of Farmington, New Mexico, had decided to propose by hiding the engagement ring in his girlfriend`s milkshake.  The two went out to Wendy`s with friends (who were in on the joke) and ordered Frosties.  Harris snuck the engagement ring into his girlfriend`s shake.

But things went downhill when Whipple`s friends, wanting her to discover the engagement ring, challenged her to a chugging competition.  Whipple quickly consumed the contents of the cup – including the diamond ring.   

"I felt nothing at all," she told Matt Lauer later on the Today Show.  "I was racing my friends, so there was no way I was going to lose that competition."

The video of the event shows Harris checking his girlfriend`s empty cup, her friends` cups, and then the floor.  It took him a few seconds to realize that Kaitlin had actually swallowed the ring. 

At first, Whipple didn`t believe him: "We joke a lot," she told Lauer.  But, after her friends kept insisting that Harris was telling the truth, she was finally convinced.

Harris and Whipple took a late-night trip to the hospital, where the X-Ray confirmed that Kaitlin had indeed swallowed the engagement ring.  With the X-ray in hand, Harris got down on one knee and proposed.  Whipple said yes.

Several days later, after eating plenty of fiber and prunes, Whipple reported on her blog that she`d finally received her engagement ring:

"It arrived this morning and I have never been so excited about my bodily functions.  Haha.  It`s so beautiful and I love it.  It was definitely well worth the wait."