Singer Danny K (real name Daniel Koppel) went down on one knee at a game lodge last week and asked girlfriend Lisa Gundelfinger for her hand in marriage.

The singer had asked Billy Gundelfinger, Lisa’s father, for permission two months ago. Not a bad call when one is marrying the daughter of one of SA's most famous divorce lawyers!

The couple were on a romantic break at the Londolozi game reserve near the Kruger National Park when he popped the question over a candlelight dinner on Thursday.

"It was such a surprise," said Gundelfinger. "After the main course, we had fillet, Danny went down on one knee and proposed.

"It was perfect. We had a view over the river and there were rose petals on the deck. There was even lightning, but no rain."

The crooner summoned nerves of steel when he asked Gundelfinger's father, Billy, one of South Africa's most famous divorce lawyers, for her hand in marriage two months ago.

"I wasn't as nervous as one would imagine. But I suppose any man standing before his future father-in-law does feel a twinge," he said.

"Billy is a lovely guy and over the past two years I've got to know him well."

Koppel, 34, and Gundelfinger, 26, live in Johannesburg, where she will soon join the bar as an advocate. They plan to get married next year.

Gundelfinger said Koppel had chosen the perfect ring, even though they had never discussed such things.

Koppel met former president Nelson Mandela in Qunu in the Eastern Cape on Monday. He was there for the official opening of a solar-powered school by Graça Machel. "A few of us were lucky enough to visit Madiba at his house," he said.