Pepper Mill knew we were getting married, long before I did, but her moving in with me provided me with a clue even a nerd as oblivious as me couldn’t overlook. I didn’t want to get married until I was financially secure, though. As soon as we were, I made a reservation at the Parker house restaurant in Boston. I arranged for the piano player to do “Music of the Night” (Her favorite song from Phantom of the Opera. I serenadeed her with it from the street, dressed in full Phantom outfit and makeup, once. But that’s another story), and presented her with the ring. She immediately started crying. The roaming violinist and waitstaff found reasons to come over discreetly and look.
They probably weren’t impressed. It was a diamond ring, but certainly not a “two months salary”-valued one. It was, however, precisely the right design for her, as I knew when I picked it out.
It was only afterwards, in the garage on the way back to the car, that I realized I hadn’t actually verbalized the proposal, so I got down on the standard knee and formally proposed. To this day, despite the fancy, expensive dinner, the ring, the piano theme, and all, Pepper Mill maintains that I proposed to her in a parking garage.
My wife and I already knew that we’d get married eventually but we hadn’t set a timeline. I sent her a fake invitation to our wedding with a response card that said to come out to the porch where I was waiting to do the one knee deal. She had said before that she was absolutely certain that she’d be able to read me and know when the proposal was coming, but I completely surprised her. She was so shocked that she never actually said yes, just a quavering “yeah!” as she dealt with the surprise.
Not really, but that’s mostly my fault. He moved to Philly with the idea that I’d move in with him shortly after he got there (he deliberately chose an apartment that two people could live in comfortably, but I didn’t want to officially leave my old apartment until my roommates had found a replacement). My grandmother, however, threw a fit to my mother about us living together “in sin.” In order to keep my mother from having to hear about it, we agreed to at least get engaged, so we were ring shopping when he laughed and said, “So, will you marry me?” We got married a few years later. No regrets here; a formal proposal would’ve been weird for us.
First Proposal: Over a nice dinner at a fancy-schmancy restaurant. She said yes, then cheated on me, and we broke up before the wedding.
Second Proposal: Just a slow evolution from dating to comments that included “forever”. Proposal just sort of slowly occurred. She was an egocentric control freak and that marriage lasted about 4 years.
Third Proposal: On the beach. I staged a basket with champagne & glasses for a sunset trip to the beach. Hidden in the folds of the basket’s cloth liner was the ring. We went to the beach, with her very suspicous of my intent. I had something bulky in my pocket and her hand rested on my thigh as we drove there. She thought the pocket object was the ring box.
When we arrived at the beach, I emptied my pockets into the car to keep from losing stuff into the sand. She was devastated when she saw the pocket thing (I’m not being obtuse, I just don’t remember what it was) and it wasn’t the ring box. She was obviously crestfallen and I didn’t correct her mood.
Later I proposed by the light of the setting sun on the water. Very romantic.
The self-centered bitch cheated on me 11 years later and we’re now divorced.
Fourth proposal: Her Birthday. My earlier attempts to take her for a romantic walk were thwarted by the needs of family. We went back to my apartment later and I proposed, finally, while in the haze of post-coital bliss. I had two wrapped birthday presents put aside: the ring in case she said yes and a pendant if she said no. She got the ring for her birthday, the pendant for Christmas.
Miss Johnson and I were taking a ballroom dancing class together at the local community college, and it was break time. We wandered outside into the cool air and I told her to sit down.
She doesn’t much like being told what to do :rolleyes: and protested, but I finally got her to sit down on a bench and I did the whole down-on-one-knee thing. She agreed to become Mrs. R, and then we headed back into class. She was grinning so much that everyone there immediately guessed what had happened.
We bought a ring afterward. She told me later that if I hadn’t proposed in another three months, she would’ve proposed to me. We’ve been married (wait, gotta do the subtraction) 22 years so far, and it seems to be going pretty well.
I proposed. It was initially a long-distance relationship, but after a year of meeting at various places around the country, we were both sure that This Was The Person I Was Meant To Be With. One year to the day after first laying eyes upon my beloved, I proposed to her in front of the Buddha next to the koi pond at the Huntington Library. We were married exactly one year later. (Hey, I’m a guy! I want 1 date to remember!)
I proposed at a nice restaurant in Tokyo, down on one knee with the ring. Cliched, I know.
It was a surprise to her because we’d been together for almost 3 years and I had said some time in the past that about 2 years was the make or break point for most relationships. You’re either going to get married or you’re never going to get that serious. I’d actually looked into getting a ring when we’d only been together for about a year and a half, but one of my preconceptions as a guy was that if you can’t afford to pay for a ring with cash, you probably can’t afford a wife. I was putting almost everything extra I had toward student loans in the US, which between a relatively low wage, the exchange rates, and the transfer fees were still disgustingly high.
She’d made some very strong hints, such as dragging me (almost literally) into a jewelry store several times. Considering that I was the one who had actually broached the subject of marriage, it’s not like I was resistant or anything, I just wanted to do it my way. There was one ring that she looked at a lot. I think we looked at it together three or four times, basically every time we went by that particular jewelry store. The gods only know how many times she made excuses to go by there herself.
I finally decided that if I waited until I had enough saved to get the ring I was probably not going to need the damn thing, so I borrowed some money to get it, keeping it a secret from everyone but her mother. I made sure that I knew her size and went by the shop a couple of months before our anniversary. I picked it up on the way down to her mom’s place, where we stay when we’re in the Tokyo area, and kept it in my jacket pocket until just before dessert time. When the mood was right, I slipped my hand into the pocket, pulled out the box, went down on one knee, and proposed.
She started to cry even before I got the ring out of the box.
Some things become cliches for a reason: they work
I got down on my knees, had a ring in my pocket, did the whole thing. I even drove down to her home in S. Georgia to ask her Dad for his approval. It wouldn’t have mattered what he said, but the fact that I made the effort mattered to the both of them.
My father never did propose to my mother. It was more of a proposition. To wit: “Hey, honey, if we get married, you and the kids will be covered on my health insurance!” We had previously lived in Massachusetts, where for most practical purposes you can get married by telling people you are and shacking up together, and moved to Arizona, which at the time still technically had laws prohibiting cohabitation without the benefit of marriage. They called a cheap little chapel across town and asked them nicely to stay open an extra half-hour so they could get married after Dad got off work. I told Mom years later, after I’d grown up, that it would have been much funnier if she had gone to meet him at the altar towing toddler-me and carrying my sister, who was not yet ambulatory.
My mother and her sisters all got several proposals before they actually got married. My mother declined the first one with a terrified squeak of, “But we’re only seventeen!” I’ve apparently managed to short-circuit the family tradition by breaking up with a couple of boyfriends just after they decided to ask, but before they could get the ring and do so. Why this happens puzzles me; I have no particular intention of getting married, ever, and I’m up front about telling them so.
My sister and her man have held off on getting married for financial and insurance reasons, but she’s been proposed to and they plan to eventually get married in Tombstone. My brother-in-law has no real urge to wear a tuxedo, but if they get him a good leather wedding duster and a shiny new hunting gun, he’ll use them for years to come. My sister wanted to dress as a saloon girl, and I counter-threatened to show up dressed like a proper lady. =D
Ohhh… sighs dreamily I love that so many Dopers are hopelessly romantic.
I got the traditional proposal, but because my husband and I are both careful, meticulous planners and great communicators, it was extremely expected. We both discussed eventual marriage pretty much from the point of hooking up, because we were already close friends and we both wanted it to be clear how serious our feelings ran. We agreed that following graduation would be an appropriate time for marriage (we were barely Sophomores when we first got together.)
Shortly before he graduated, he solicited ideas of rings I liked, and I printed 10 full-color sheets to give him an idea. We talked dates and possibly ideas for wedding themes, all before the proposal. We planned a picnic in the Arboretum for our three year anniversary a few weeks after his graduation, and though nothing was explicitly said, we both knew we were getting engaged that day.
The picnic itself contained some wonderful surprises. First, he gave me two giant 2’’ binders full of all the love emails we’d sent one another at the beginning of our relationship (we communicated almost exclusively through email the summer we got close.) The first email in the binder was a completely innocuous one in which we clearly don’t know one another very well and are just starting to hang out. You can then follow the story of us falling in love, through email, right up to the confession and well into the relationship. What a marvelous and frankly irreplaceable gift.
The second surprise was the ring itself, which was so frakking awesomely perfect and exactly what I wanted that I could barely contain myself. He got down on his knee on this beautiful day in the park by the river and we concluded the day by buying a Wedding Planner and setting the date for June 11, the week following our four year dating anniversary.
Just celebrated 2 years of marriage this week. I am so glad we plan things together. I preferred that to any surprise; it was a total joy to always be on the same page.
I’m a real moron when it comes to women. But somehow I found the right moment to ask the question. Not to be TMI but we had just had the most mind blowing sex ever and I was looking at her with what she said was a weird look. I asked her there when we were both sweating and panting. ( not a good idea in retrospect ).
Oh well, lesson learned. I’ve since learned not to listen to evil mr. winky.
Sam Stone and I went to the Reno Air Races and everyone kept mistaking us for husband and wife at the old MGM Grand. I suppose it was a not unreasonable assumption. But no, we were traveling together in sin!
We watched airplanes do death-defying stuff all day and then went out for dinner and… Frank Sinatra! He was 72 then (the Chairman, not Sam). Then we bought a bunch of junk at the candy shop and gorged our faces.
Sam stood with me under a poster of Ava Gardner. He took me by the hand, addressed me by my full name, first, middle, and last – “Will you marry me?” He was what they call “terribly earnest.” He still is. You know that part.
