Nothing says "I love you" like a giant billboard smack in the middle of a highway, right?

That was the go-big-or-go-home approach taken at least by one New York man.  He purchased ad space on a billboard to ask his girlfriend to marry him.

Joe Ferrari, a local restaurant owner, made sure his "Will you marry me?" message went up just as planned on Wednesday along Route 390 near Rochester, N.Y.

"I've been wanting to propose for some time now but I wanted to do something really crazy and different, so I asked the company I use for advertising and they said it's [proposing on a billboard] never been done before in Rochester, so I said, 'Well, I want to be that guy,'" Ferrari told ABCNews.com.

After making sure the sign was up, Ferrari convinced his girlfriend of six years, Laurie Guidice, to take a drive with him. He told her they needed to pick up a new vehicle.

The billboard was personalized not only with the "Laurie, Will you marry me?" message from Ferrari, but also featured a giant picture of the couple's 20-month-old son, Louis, captioned to say, "Mom, Please marry Dad."

As the couple approached the sign, Ferrari said he pretended the car had a mechanical failure and told Guidice he needed to pull over.

When Guidice looked up she saw the giant billboard - and could not believe her eyes.

"She had no clue," Ferrari said.  "She couldn't get words to her mouth, she said, 'Oh my God, that's my son.'  She couldn't believe it."

The good news, Ferrari said, is that Guidice said yes.  The couple has yet to set a wedding date, but don't be surprised if you see the Ferrari-Guidice nuptials making news too.

"Sure, there's some things in my brain," he said.  "I'm thinking of some crazy stuff as we speak."

In the meantime, Ferrari has made sure the advertising company will update the billboard to reflect the couple's happy ending for the remainder of the 30-day time he has the ad space purchased.

"Just to really finish it off," he said.  "It's turning into a lot of hoopla.  It's turning into everything I wanted it to."