So How Did You Propose to Your SO?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Had a misfire of crossed signals at the big Christmas family gathering when my then-girlfriend (now wife) thought I was going to propose to her in front of everyone. That night after everybody had gone home, we had a serious talk and hashed out some details as to when the big date would occur. That left me with noodling out the specifics of a suitable proposal and I had to make it quick.

Days later we went out together and bought the ring and made plans for a Friday night date. My girlfriend and I had been together for almost fourteen years at that point and I decided I would recreate our very first date together.

We started with restaurant we went to that first time though it had since been changed to a Mexican restaurant. We then went to the movie theater where we had seen the Schwarzenegger movie Total Recall and I had with me a printout of the movie poster. We then went back to the hill in front of the chapel at the University of Maryland just like we did that first time and that’s when I got down on one knee and proposed. She said yes and the happy ending ensued.

Next?

2

We sort of did this thread recently. Here was my reply then.

3

I was the prepos-ee, does that count?

We’d been discussing marriage on some level since we first got together, but always agreed to wait until after graduation. It sort of happened that I ended up taking time off school and he was going to graduate before me, so we modified it to ‘‘after one of us graduates.’’

We never discussed the date, but it was pretty obvious it was going to be on our 3-year dating anniversary because it was almost immediately following his graduation. We talked budget, then I printed out photos of rings I liked at his request, measured myself for an official size, and we did some half-assed thematic planning, then we waited…

June 1st, 2005, as planned we celebrated our anniversary with a picnic at the local arboretum, the site of our first date back before we knew it had been a date. We lay out a blanket by the river, the weather was perfect. Hilariously, there was an arguing couple not too far from us really battling it out, and we sort of had to wait for them to calm down. Since we both knew what was coming we just lay there laughing to ourselves at the screaming couple.

Then he gave me my first present, two binders wrapped with a bow (lovingly hand-crafted by a friend out of a garbage bag–you wouldn’t believe how beautiful this garbage-bag bow looked) that contained all the e-mails we wrote while we were obliviously falling in love with one another. It’s hard to imagine the scale of that present, we are talking 4’’ of emails covering the span of our entire relationship, from casual acquaintances to best friends to really deeply in love. Then he handed me a third binder and inside was taped the box containing the most gorgeous sapphire ring mine eyes had ever seen.

So that was basically it. I wasn’t remotely surprised by the event but I was surprised by all the loving details and how much I adored the ring and we pretty much spent the rest of the day in ecstasy. That fact that it was not a surprise did not take away one moment of the joy, in fact it probably enhanced it because there was so much nervous excitement between the two of us that day, and it was an experience we shared from the beginning to the end.

It’s funny you mention the ‘‘crossed signals’’ thing. The preceding Christmas before the proposal, he gave me a present acting very mysterious and exciting about it – it was a ring and I thought he was proposing early, but no, he was just giving me a ring (a set of three rings, actually.) I guess he was just really excited to wrap each ring separately and then show me how they fit together.

4

Secondhand, since I wasn’t there.

Bro and SiL had been dating (and keeping their pants buttoned) for seven years. He’d graduated, she was graduating; she had to pass her Internship Acceptance Exam (MIR), a requirement for MDs in Spain, and then do her Internship. He was already working.

Her parents said they wouldn’t help pay for the MIR preparation, not even the first try. So Bro basically told her “you know, if we’re going to support ourselves, I’d rather do it having traded our silver rings for gold ones” (he’d bought two matching silver bands when she finally accepted “going steady,” it’s hard to know which of the two is more old-fashioned sometimes) “but my parents…” “FUCK your parents with a wooden spoon! sideways!”

That night when he came home he announced the wedding date to us. My parents, like hers, took it stupid-bad. Littlebro and myself congratulated the groom and told the parental units to get those broomsticks out of their asses. The only reason all four parental units didn’t want them to get married yet was Control, dangit.

5

On a ferry between Patra, Greece and Venice, Italy, I got drunk while drinking a vile concoction of 50% Coke and 50% Ouzo. Fighting a brisk April sea breeze, we were huddled together up on the top deck. I can’t remember how we even got to the topic nor if I got down on one knee. Regardless, I do remember actually asking and her saying yes.

We get married in six months.

6

Sign Here!

7

We went for a walk in the water meadows on a Thursday evening in September… I got down on one knee and did the deed, I had a ring ready to go.

Then we went to a pub for dinner - it was dead quiet so all the staff came over to congratulate us, and we got complimentary Kir Royale.

8

On top of a Mountain in Sedona.

9

We lived a couple blocks from the beach and my husband had planned to take me for a walk on the beach and propose there, at sunset. Unfortunately, it was pouring when I got home from work that afternoon. I mean, seriously, torrential rain. I walked in the house, absolutely drenched, and he asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. I said sure and he got down on one knee in a freezing Spring rain, with lightning crashing and waves pounding. I shouldn’t have been surprised when a hurricane made an appearance at our outdoor wedding later that year.

10

Denver International Airport had been open for business for just about a month when the wife got to come home from her hateful DOD programming job for the weekend (she worked 70 hour weeks until crunchtime, then they shipped her out of town to really get things accomplished).

I meet her at the gate in a suit with the sign “Heather <Maiden Name Here>”, when she saw it and laughed I flipped the sign over and it said ‘Will you Marry Me?’

I got a shriek and a hug and I think she said yes…it was hard to tell. Very enthusiastic reception.

It was kinda funny as a few months before, I was pondering the engagement ring from a previous failed engagement and was mentioning something about selling it as a down payment on a new car. She muttered something like ‘It’d be a shame to get rid of that ring’. It was sparkely. We had it re-set.

11

Valentine’s Day. Engagement ring hidden in box of chocolates. And she thought all I got her was candy. heh

12

You’re lucky she didn’t eat the ring. My sister almost drank hers, which was sitting at the bottom of a champagne glass.

I’ve never proposed to anyone, but I think my niece’s husband did a fine job of it.

My niece was in the front seat of my brother’s car when they passed by a sign that said “JESSICA.” Soon after, they passed by more signs that said “WILL”, “YOU”, “MARRY”, and “ME”, followed by the groom on one knee with a ring.

Jessica was busy talking to her mother in the back seat and missed the whole thing. My brother had to turn around and drive the route again.

13

I had help.

My (now) wife and I had quite openly talked about getting married and even done some talking about dates and plans and such. We teased each other a lot with, “Well, I haven’t asked you yet / Well, I haven’t said yes.” We had also gone shopping for wedding rings, and she had found a set and a center stone that she adored. At the time, I was still very poor indeed, so I had to borrow the money for the ring. I bought it on a Tuesday, and planned to propose that Friday.

In the meantime, I secretly contacted some friends of ours whom we were seeing for dinner that week and told them what I had planned. At dinner, I slipped one of them the key to my apartment, so they could get in and carry out their part of the plan.

That Friday, my wife and I went out to dinner and a play, with the ring hidden in my pocket. She met me at my apartment, and we left from there. While we were gone, my friends came to the apartment and decorated; I had left them a box of about 100 candles, lighters, and fresh rose petals. I had also left a CD of some good love songs and instructions on how to set it to repeat in the player.

Unfortunately, the play was shorter than I’d thought it’d be, so we started home pretty early. As we were leaving the play, I called friend A on the phone and let it ring twice, to let him know that we were on our way (if something had gone awry, the plan was to call friend C and let it ring twice, the “clear out” signal). That was their cue to light the arranged candles, start the music, kill the lights, and hide around the corner. I drove slow to give them plenty of time.

When we got to my apartment, it was completely transformed from what she’d seen a few hours before. The entry was lined with candles to make a sort of path to follow, scattered with the rose petals, and they’d made a heart shape out of more candles on the table, with rose petals in the middle. More candles surrounded the whole thing; it was quite pretty. I led her inside, got down on one knee, and proposed. She couldn’t answer for a while, what with the crying and such, but she said, “Of course I will.” And then we called our friends back over and went out for a glass of wine.

The song that happened to be playing when I proposed was “Tupelo Honey”. So, that’s still our song.

14

Years ago, my friend Laurel took our friend Mark out to dinner for his birthday. Apparently it was very romantic. When it was over, she suggested that they go back to her place. He was really excited at the prospect having some naughty naked alone time with her. When they entered her darkened apartment, he was about to tear her clothes off with his teeth. At that very moment, the lights came on and revealed a couple dozen of us yelling “surprise.”

15

We’d been hanging out together for 3 years and I never considered going out with anyone else.

Both sitting on the sofa watching a movie at my house. Her 6 year old son spralled across our laps, asleep. The world seemed about right. So I turned to her and asked “will you marry me” - She said yes, then we went back to the movie.

Later on she told me she knew I would ask eventually so it wasn’t a big surprise. Turns out asking someone to marry me was easy, planning a wedding took a little more work.

16

I took about 2 dozen long stem flowers and spelled out “MARRY ME” on the wall of my apartment.

17

Drove to a pond with geese and swans behind a building where I used to work (it was a Sunday, so I knew interruption was unlikely). I put on a portable tape recorder set to the middle of Air Supply’s “Makin’ Love out of Nothing at All”. When the part I wanted her to hear ended, I got down on one knee, asked, and she said yes.

18

Online on a message board for this game we were both into on Prodigy. I was on first, did my stuff, and turned the machine over to her. Then she was wondering why I was hovering. “Oh, I’m just trying to decide whether to make some nachos before I sit down.”

19

It was not really a proposal, we kind of worked it out together.

The recruiter said, “you’re shipping out for basic training in one week.”

So I turned to my girlfriend and said “We should probably get married, huh?”

We pretty much always knew we would marry each other and we had talked about it, but we were young (18 and 19) so it was always an ‘in the future’ thing we hardly thought about. Getting her all those military benefits was what finally spurred us on.