Over the weekend, I heard from a friend that his daughter’s semi on again, off again boyfriend proposed to the daughter, and she said no. I asked if they had ever talked about marriage, and he said that according to the daughter, they hadn’t, which is why she said no.
I know that impromptu proposals do happen, and that many proposals do get turned down. But I’m pretty staunch in my belief that you don’t ask someone to marry you unless you know the answer ahead of time…meaning the two people have talked about it. I advised my son before he wanted to propose to his girlfriend, that they should talk about it first. I have also, advised both of my daughters that they are under no obligation to accept unsolicited marriage proposals, and in fact should look down on them.
Has anyone here popped the question without knowing what the answer was going to be ahead of time? If so, what was the answer?
I’m pretty sure my proposal came burbling up out of nowhere and caught my future wife off-guard.
She not not say yes that night.
We discussed things far more after that and when she said yes:
We went shopping for the engagement ring together, got an apartment together and then went shopping for a used piano for my wife to be as the rest of her engagement ring. She got a quarter carat and 88 keys. This was by agreement. Neither one of us thought and expensive ring made sense, the piano cost twice as much.
As I said in a recent, related thread, of course we did. We’d been dating, then living together for years before we decided to set her concerns (and those of her parents, more) aside and shopped for rings together. I was to then find a nice occasion to propose, and then let her mother work out all the details… though I still wish we’d been allowed to take my FiL’s offer of $5k cash to just elope. We said we’d think about it, and then when we said “Yes” less than a week later, MiL had found out and nixxed it.
We didn’t go so far as to shop for the ring together, but had somehow come to an understanding that marriage was in our future. So when I presented her with the ring it was a wonderful moment but not a surprise.
My FiL’s offer was an extension ladder and $2k I think. I wonder if they knew each other?
My MIL also nixed and nixed hard. Our wedding was more for her than my wife I think. It was very nice though and she gave us some reasonable choices, just not the simple thing we were going to do.
Our situations are indeed very similar. Myself, my wife, and my FiL were all “Really, who cares about the ceremony, the invitations, let’s just get it done and get on with living!”
My MiL though… my wife is an only child, and MiL had been going to friends and family’s weddings for years and this was HER time to have a leading role. I got to nope out of about 90% of things, my wife about 60% and my FiL just got stuck holding the check.
Life is very unfair.
[ aside, my FiL was an ex-navy man, who then spent most of his post military career as a government contractor, so considering my knowledge of your posting, it’s possible, or you may have bumped into him yourself at some point! ]
My now-wife and I had been dating for about a year, maybe a bit more, when we started really talking about getting married; it was clear from the moment that we really brought it up that we were both interested.
A few months after that, she picked out a ring which she wanted for her engagement ring: a unique ring which had been made by a friend of ours, who was a goldsmith at the Renaissance Faire where we worked; she had her friend arrange for me to buy it that same day. I had the ring for about two months before I actually proposed (for a variety of timing reasons), but it wasn’t a surprise to her, in the slightest; we went out for a fancy dinner, and she was certain that I was going to propose that evening (she was right).
Another one who is not sure any specific proposal was involved. More like we were talking about what we wanted in life, and when we both agreed we’d like to be married, one of us said essentially, “why don’t we marry each other.”
We got engaged after 6 years together and one year of living together full time (we were semi-long distance prior to that due to university). We both knew marriage was the next step and shopped for her ring together. The only person surprised was her dad.
I didn’t have to discuss it; I knew that she would say yes. We shared a lot of interests and she was clearly devoted to me. When I asked, she was overjoyed.
I should add that, like some others have said, we’d already been living together for some time, so marriage was a de facto deal. The ring just meant that we would have a fancy ceremony and then resume doing what we were already doing.
And If I may inject an editorial comment, living together, or “living in sin” as defined in some cultures/religions, is in reality the absolutely healthiest way to approach marriage. I find it astonishing that anyone would consider any alternative.
I agree; I moved in with my wife only a few weeks before our wedding, in 1992, a decision which was almost entirely driven by the expiration dates on the rental contracts which she and I had on our separate apartments. Even then, her sister and her mother were both at least mildly scandalized and disapproving of that.
But, in retrospect, it would have been ideal to have been able to live together as a household earlier (maybe even before we got engaged), as there were things that led to short-term, and even longer-term, disputes and friction between us, which we didn’t discover until we were under one roof and joint finances.
Nitpick: the question in the thread title is “Did you talk to your “intended” about marriage, before you actually did the proposal?” The question in the O.P. is the opposite: “Has anyone here popped the question without knowing what the answer was going to be ahead of time?”
Which question does SDMB etiquette suggest I answer ?
At least one other poster has answered the final line of the O.P. so I’ll follow suit. My reply would be, “No, no, no, no NO!” We talked about it extensively beforehand.
The only thing that was a surprise to my wife-to-be was when I drove her to a lovely, scenic spot and reiterated the question, while presenting her with an engagement ring that she hadn’t seen. (It was a family heirloom.) I thought she deserved some sort of semi-ceremonious thing. Apparently she did too, as she was quite pleased.
My husband and I started dating at age 19. Since we’d been close prior to that, our intentions were serious right from the start. We talked about it for pretty much the entire three years leading up to the proposal, which was not a surprise, though he did formally propose. There wasn’t really a topic we didn’t cover. Do you want kids? How many? Are you okay with adoption? How will we split childcare duties? What standard of living do you want? Can we make that work with our current career trajectories? We also had to put together the plan of how we’d both get through graduate school (graduate school in reality tanked our plans, but such is life.) We also way overshot when we were going to start having children. The original plan was age 25. The reality was age 37. (Thanks graduate school!)
But my husband and I have always been constantly engaged in conversation with each other about anything important we’re doing, as well as literally any other topic. We’re talkers. And planners. And thus we remain to this day (coming up on 24 years together, 20 married.)
Since we’re talking about proposals and marriages, I want to share a lovely moment of my life. The girl I married had originally been a receptionist at the company we both worked for, then later got promoted to a sales position. She was very pretty and much ogled. So news of our engagement spread through the company like wildfire. At a company Christmas party shortly after, the president of the company came up to me and, in his typical brusque style, said two memorable words: “Well done!”. Not “congratulations” or any of that sentimental stuff, just the sentiment that in the game of life, you made a winning move. It was cetainly the happiest period of my life.
My wife and I had been living together for several years, originally because she needed to find a place to live and neither of us could afford a place on our own. At some point, since she didn’t have family of her own I started bringing her along to my family holiday get-togethers. One morning shortly before Easter when we were discussing seeing my family she made a comment about not feeling right about going because she “wasn’t really family” (I should point out that my family had never been anything but welcoming to her) and somehow this led to us starting to plan a wedding. When we announced that we were getting married my Mom practically ran me over to hug Patti and welcome her to the family.
As a side note, at some point it occurred to her that I had never actually proposed to her. This became a running joke over the next few months, including me managing to change the subject every time she tried proposing to me. So when we met at the altar I leaned over and said, “Hey, lady, if you’re not doing anything do you want to get married?”