This question is mainly for the married ladies on the SDMB, although men can chime in too…
What were the first few thoughts that went through your head when you were proposed to?
Disappointment? (“This? I hoped it would be something more creative / less cliche / less boring / this is anticlimactic?”)
Unprepared surprise? (“Uh oh, what do I say? I don’t actually know for sure if I want to marry him or not?”)
“Finally?” (“It took him so long!”)
Happiness? Embarrassment? Disbelief? Unhappy? Shock?
Confusion. We’d been together about 7 years, I’d proposed to him a couple of times already and he said no, and we’d had multiple conversations about him being opposed to marriage in general, with fears of things changing between us if we got hitched.
I’d pretty much resigned myself to not marrying him, so when he proposed it was out of the blue and my first thought was genuinely not knowing if he was serious.
A male perspective. We are both divorced. After living together very happily for a year or two, we began having conversations about the pros/cons of marriage. We discussed the pros/cons of wedding locations; Caribbean beach limits attendees, backyard is nice and more inclusive. We even talked about the economic pros/cons with my (now our) tax person.
Over the eight or so years since we’ve begun discussing this we haven’t done any formal planning. We occasionally introduce ourselves as married, and my gf has even generated a convincingly romantic story about our wedding.
My husband didn’t actually propose. On our 3rd (I think) date, he said “You’re going to marry me. It may take a year or 10 years, but you’ll marry me.” I think my reaction was along the lines of “Well, duh, of course I will.”
We eloped less than a month later and we’re approaching our 32nd anniversary. A few months after we got married, he bought me an opal ring (I don’t like diamonds) and some months after that, we finally found the wedding bands we wanted.
All in all, I’m really glad he didn’t do the going-down-on-one-knee schtick and most definitely glad he didn’t make some silly public gesture, like renting a billboard or an airplane with a banner. Then again, if he was the kind of guy to do the public gesture sort of thing, I doubt we’d have even gotten to the 3rd date.
Male here: After a couple of years of an Long-Distance Relationship, I returned to the area. It was pretty much understood that, once I got a local job and was settled, we’d get married. We were in bed one Friday evening, and I said that we should go shopping on Saturday, holding my hand up and wiggling my fingers to show what I meant. She got it.
My wife told me she first thought I was breaking up with her, since I began with “I’ve been thinking a lot about our relationship…*” When I asked her, she fell into my arms and started to kiss me. After a minute of that, she broke off and said, “That’s a yes.”
*I did it deliberately, so it would be more dramatic.
I don’t think it was any sort of surprise to Pepper Mill. She had to know there was a reason that I took her to a significantly fancier restaurant than we’d ever been to before. Nevertheless, she cried when I gave her the ring.
She maintains that I didn’t actually propose in the restaurant – I didn’t say anything as I gave her the ring. It wasn’t until we were in the Underground Parking Garage that I actually formally asked her, so she says I proposed in a parking garage.
I’d had a huge fight with one of the prosecutors that day, and was rip-roaring mad. I came home and was severely pissed off. We went out for dinner and drinks and got tipsy… laughing and being silly. We went to Giant and got enormous gumballs out of the gumball machine (the kind that are so big you can’t fit them entirely in your mouth). Mine was blue and I had a big blue mouth by the time we got home.
Then boyfriend kept asking me to come upstairs. I figured he just wanted to get laid and I was stalling because it was funny, and I was drunk. Then I got annoyed at his pestering, and my buzz was wearing off and all I could think about was that ass-face prosecutor. Finally I wandered upstairs to see what then boyfriend was whining about.
He had the computer on and on the screen was a picture of the engagement ring he had purchased for me. He looked at me and said, “let’s get married!” I stood there open mouth with blue drool running down my chin, and was still half convinced that he proposed because he wanted to get laid. Or to get me to stop whining about the prosecutor.
After my momentary pause, I said yes. We cried and hugged. Then he got laid. The ring came a week or two later.
My husband was very laid back and not a big talker. One day, after we’d been dating about 4 years, he looked at me and said “I think we should get married.” I said “I think so, too.” And that was that.
We lived together for twenty-something years. Neither of us could see a point in getting married (been there, done that). One day I came home from work and he was at the computer. He said, “I just figured out if we got married you could be on my insurance and we could retire.” I said omg that’s the most romantic proposal I’ve ever heard and I accept.
“That was earlier than I expected. Oh no, he thinks this pause means something bad! Tell him yes already!”
I thought he was going to wait until we both graduated college. He was planning to wait too, but his emotions got the better of him and he just blurted it out about 5 months earlier than planned.
I put the ring in the bottom of jewelry box. Wrapped the box up as a gift. I got off work about 5 am in Watsonville California. I drove to San Francisco straight from work, about 100 miles. I got to her apartment building about 7 am. She answered the door and I gave her my gift. When she opened it she thought it was nice but asked me why the gift now. I told her look in the bottom drawer. She just looked at the ring them me and said “you didn’t” then looked at the ring and then me and said “you didn’t” and then she kept repeating. I told her yes I did then I got down on one knee ask asked her. She said yes. That was in 1971. We had been dating since 1968. So she had just about given up on me getting serious.
I also got a romantic proposal. “We should get married” said my live in boyfriend who I’d know for a decade to me - a divorced woman.
“Why?”
Yeah, romance all around.
(Like others, we’d had previous conversations around “if we got married” so no, not a huge surprise or disappointment. And my first husband gave me a lovely proposal, and a shit marriage, so I wasn’t in need of bended knee and the ring inside a jelly donut)
Hah I got a whispered “What do you think about getting married after we pay off our debt?”, and I think I responded with a confused “What?”. He’s generally very sweet, but definitely not a romantic guy.
