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He liked it, so he put a ring on it. But the engagement ring a tourist gave his fiancée was apparently too big, fell off and slipped down a utility grate in Times Square late Friday, the police said.

The couple walked away as the police searched for the dazzler, but by early Sunday afternoon the groom had called to claim the bauble after the police announced they had retrieved it — and had initiated a social media search for the hapless couple.

By then, the couple had already returned to the United Kingdom.

“Hey, it’s me,” the groom said in a call to the CrimeStoppers hotline, according to Sgt. Lee Jones, a police spokesman. A woman who said she is the bride-to-be on social media could not immediately be reached for comment on Sunday.

The groom proposed on Friday in Central Park, and the ring slipped off later that night as they walked past 2 Times Square, the police said.

By Sunday, a social media manhunt that would have made Cinderella blush was underway for the couple.

A video the police posted on Twitter on Saturday showed the couple searching in vain for the ring. The man, tall in a blue-toned blazer, dark pants and a paperboy hat, got down on his belly and peered through the grate, apparently hoping to catch sight of the ring underground. His fiancée, in a short jacket and heels, slipped her hair behind her ears and squatted next to him.

The police post on Twitter led readers to believe the groom had proposed in Times Square. Some users sympathized with the choice, noting its bright lights and status as the Crossroads of the World.

But many struggled to understand why anyone would propose over a grate. “Love is blind,” one user suggested. Others noted that on frigid nights like Friday, the grates are a source of heat.

Others were puzzled as to why the couple did not file a lost property report.

Grates are ubiquitous sidewalk features in New York, where they act as a morgue of sorts for untold numbers of personal items, like keys and phones. The items often end up orphaned inside the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s property unit, with scores of other belongings that are left on the subway. Many people have shared stories of loss, and some people have even taken to fishing items out of the grates’ latticework.

After the ring tumbled, the couple flagged down police officers, who brought in comrades from the Emergency Service Unit. But the couple walked away after about an hour of searching.

Officers continued searching for the ring after a shift change, and luck struck around 10:30 a.m., when Special Operations officers unearthed it. Later in the day, the police posted a picture of the silver-colored band with a round diamond-like stone in the center. Six smaller stones cascade along each side.

Officials were not able to provide specifics about the ring because they did not have it appraised by a jeweler, Sergeant Jones said.

A Twitter user quipped, “I hope the couple is grate-ful.”

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