Tattoo artist inks himself for proposal

SAN DIEGO (CNN/XETV) - Joe Wittenberg has been designing tattoos for nine years. So when it came time to ask the woman he loves to marry him, he put the machine to his own skin.

"It seemed pretty apt for how me and Rachel are," he said.

It's one thing to get a tattoo designed by someone else, but could you imagine doing all the work on yourself? That's exactly what Joe did.

"I made a stencil and put the stencil on my leg and then just followed it along," he explained.

Joe and Rachel have a 6-month-old boy named Liam, so Joe decided Mother's Day was the perfect tdate.

"I was already down on one knee, so I pulled up my pants and she saw the tattoo," Joe said.

As Rachel stared at the tattoo, she says everything went from shocking to fitting. And she gave an answer: Yes.

And while some might find a proposal through a tattoo somewhat risky, this bride-to-be-says Joe traced his ink just right,

"He scored some points for putting my name on there for sure," said Rachel.