Love and marriage, sang the Chairman of the Board, is an institute you can’t disparage. Make that a Smithsonian Institute for one happy couple, who got engaged on the National Mall last week.

Smithsonian.com tells the story of U.S. Marine Captain Rob Plagmann, who proposed to Naomi Walski, his girlfriend of 9 years, at the National Museum of Natural History last week. Walski teaches English in Japan; she made a trip halfway across the world to see Plagmann, who is stationed in Quantico, for the holidays. Walski has a background in forensic biology, so it wasn’t entirely creepy for Plagmann to take his main squeeze to an exhibit full of skeletons during her holiday visit. The couple made a special trip to see “Written in Bone,” a survey of forensic “bone biographies” and other artifacts from some old-ass colonies in Virginia and Maryland. Plagmann pre-arranged a special visit to the anthropology department’s forensic lab to follow their tour. Nothing says true romance like fossils of a society, y’all.

While the two were taking in mummies, sarcophagi, and other symbols of horrible curses and ancient death, Plagmann slipped a custom-ordered vow under a microscope. In teenie-tiny letters — surely sized in indirect proportion to their significance — the slide read, “Naomi, I will love you forever. Will you marry me?” And she said yes! Even a crusty mummy’s gotta say it: That is so sweet!

Kudos to Douglas Owsley, chief in the museum’s division of physical anthropology, for taking Plagmann and Walski on a romantic two-hour tour of the museum’s collection of all things mummified. Worse things could set the tone to an engagement — mummification is for eternity, after all. I will leave aside the larger significance of Captain Plagmann proposing marriage to his lover at an exhibit called “Written in Bone” and simply wish them a sincere congratulations. Good job, guys!

Photo by Ed Hoover