As I recall, the agree to get married thing happened after we had made after getting into a fairly stupid fight that was mostly related to her insecurity and PTSD from her previous abusive relationship. After this she wanted the security that came with an engagement. I was in favor of that but wanted the chance to do a full on Romantic engagement so I tied a wild daisy around her finger as a temporary ring but convinced her to be satisfied with being engaged to be engaged until I could get my ducks in a row.
Over the next several weeks I wrote her dad to officially ask for his daughters hand in marriage, (not that there was really any doubt) and picked out a ring, which she picked out a favorite saint day on which to get engaged. So clearly surprise was not what we were going for. The day of the engagement I bought several bunches of flower as the local grocery store and then went to a garden at a convent that had open grounds and used the flowers to decorate one of the benches there. Then I went to pick her up and take her to the garden. It was fall so most of the garden flowers were past their prime but there was one sole rose on one of the bushes, which she wanted to pick so that she had a flower to remember the occasion, and was a little perturbed at me that I insisted that she leave it be (since I knew that she would have no lack of flowers to mark the occasion.) Eventually we got to the bench where she sat down, I got on one knee brought out the ring and did my whole speil while she started bawling. Eventually I did manage to get her calmed down enough to remind her that crying out of happiness wasn’t sufficient and she did have to used actual words to say that yes she would marry me. After this we took off for a long weekend in a B&B on chincoteague Island.
Version 1.0 (“one point oh”) was an 11 year marriage, with 3 kids. Then she just abruptly left. That was 1995 and I still don’t know what she left. And now I don’t care either.
Version 2.0, we were dating for three years. Did I propose on Valentine’s Day? Nooooo, I proposed the following weekend, on Presidents’ Day. I didn’t want to be predictable. That was in 2002.
I first asked the kids. Well, discussed it really. They were 18, 16, and 14. They were totally cool with it. Then I had breakfast with her parents and asked for their blessing. They were happy for us.
I took her to a simple lunch in a public park. On Presidents’ Day. Got down in my knee, pulled out the ring in its box, and proposed using several practices and selected words.
Her response? “Okay”. (Not a YES!!, just an okay; she got caught up in the moment)
We’d been dating for three years so the engagement was quick. We got married four months later. Big(ish) church wedding, nice white dress and me in a tux. Three bridesmaids and three groomsmen. 125 guests, and a nice reception. This was her first wedding. We did it up, and her folks helped quite a bit.
That was in 2002. Twenty years later and we’re still in love.
I have to get and share a photo of the group picture. I’m happy we got that shot.
I saw on a Reddit that the most awkward thing is while walking with your girlfriend in front of the Eiffel Tower to get on one knee … to tie your shoe.
Mine was in the National Forest where we had spent a lot of time. I took her up there and got a little camp stove to melt some butter and pulled out a lobster tail for her for lunch. She knew something was up and that’s when I popped the question with the ring.
For me (and her) proposals should be intimate. I mean sure there can be people around like her favorite fancy restaurant or in a romantic spot like Paris. But there is no way in a million years I would propose on the stadium Jumbotron or in front of her family.
That was part of the problem. I didn’t really plan it out thinking “it’s Paris, the whole city is romantic”. So every potential spot kept getting interrupted by tourists or police protests or Belgians or whatever.
I did the traditional “down-on-one-knee” proposal on a wooden plank section of our downtown Riverwalk. I did so on the much less crowded Southbank (the Northbank, ~500 meters distant, was rimmed with crowded restaurants, bars, etc.).
When no other pedestrians were in sight, I dropped to one knee, stumbled, and dropped the ring. It rolled into the crevice between 2 planks. Luckily, it wedged there instead of dropping into the longest river in Florida.
My now ex nodded approval after I retrieved the ring and slipped it onto her finger. To my embarrassment, this was followed by an explosion of cheers and whooping from the Northbank. I’m pretty sure I heard one idiot yell, “loser!”. Then again, he was kind of prescient.
I’d planned the proposal for weeks (at the restaurant where we’d had our first sorta-date), and when I asked she said “I’m not feeling that great, I might have the flu.”
But then she said yes, and we both agree that the only reason we’ve been married for 40-ish years is because her defenses were down that night.
We were quite possibly the first couple to get engaged at Denver International Airport.
It was Cinco De Mayo, 1995 (Note: if you get engaged on a holiday, you automatically have ONE MORE holiday to keep track of)
She had her first adult job writing software for a Defense contractor who worked her 45-50 hours a week, then during crunch time, flew her out to Kansas City to code on a military base for 60-80 hours a week.
She was flying home for the weekend, so I dressed up in a suit, and stood at the gate with a sign, it said ‘Heather %password reset question answer%’ on the front and ‘Will you Marry Me?’ on the back. This was pre-9/11, they let you hang at the gate back then.
Lots of people getting off the plane said ‘What does Heather get? I can be Heather, depending…’
Turns out she was going to ask ME that weekend if I didn’t ask her.
The stone for the ring had been purchased for a previous engagement and I had it re-set…it should have been a strong hint when I mentioned I wanted to sell the stone for a car down-payment and she said, ‘well, you don’t HAVE to sell it, it’s a nice stone.’
My wife and I had an intense relationship from Jan. 1972 to Jan 1973, tempered by the fact that we were 600 miles apart. Then we broke up. But we never stopped talking to each other, and writing. I saw her twice with good results. Finally, in Jan. 1977 I called her after AmTrak killed my hamster, and we talked more. She had taken time off from grad school because she hated it, and I was moving grad schools because my adviser had suddenly died on us. I sensed she was ready for a change, so I invited her to Champaign to help more move to Louisiana. So, in July 1977, right after we say Star Wars each for the second time I proposed, and she said yes. On the way we told our parents who kind of said “who?”
The officiant at the Ethical Culture Society who was to marry us interviewed us, and I could tell he thought we were nuts. So did our friends. But we’ve been married for over 44 years, so I guess it worked.
Our daughters had normal proposals from guys they were living with.
Huh, 32 posts and I’m the first to admit to the most clichéd way possible - on a Venetian gondola? Maybe it’s not as clichéd as I thought. Possibly because those things were damn expensive, even 10 years ago.
I needed a big gesture to make up for a previous occasion when, on new year’s in front of all our friends, I made out like I was going to propose then asked if I could get a motorbike.
We were 25 and living together. We had been talking about the future for some time, knew we were going to stay together, my husband mentioned he wouldn’t mind a big party to mark our commitment, and I agreed although I was not crazy about the idea.
But that was all general talk and we had not declared ourselves engaged or anything.
One day we were walking through a flea market; I stopped at a jewelry stand, started trying on rings and asking my partner’s opinion. We settled on a lovely silver filigree ring with a moonstone. I made a little ceremony out of making him pay (we shared finances anyway), then removed the rings I was already wearing and had him put the new ring on my finger. No words needed to be said, I thought. That weekend I visited my parents and announced I was engaged. My mother’s friends were there and we had a cool little hen night.
Imagine my surprise when about two weeks later, my partner got a little package delivered, immediately opened it right there in the bedroom, took out a ring, then dropped on one knee and asked if I would marry him.
He turned out to be more of a romantic than I’d thought (I cured him with time). Of course I wore the new ring, silver and pearl, until it inevitably broke. It was really shit quality on account of him not knowing how to shop for jewelry. After that I wore the moonstone ring again.
Our main anniversary is the day we met for the first time rather than our wedding day. Without checking our calendar neither of us can even remember the date of the wedding. (It runs in the family; my dad could also never remember his anniversary, drove my mother wild).
Been married three times, so I’ll describe just one of them (the most recent):
After knowing each other for about 30 years and having been married to other people in the interim, we were both single and had been dating seriously for about three years. She retired and bought a house about two miles from mine.
One evening, while were out at dinner, I asked her, “How big a deal would it be if we were to decide to get married?”
She understood the question a bit differently than I intended, “Oh, we could keep both houses. If you want to keep living in yours, that would work. I could put you on my (union) retiree medical plan once you turn 60 and it would be pretty inexpensive.”
Anyway, she kept talking along those lines. She had obviously given it a bunch of thought while we were dating.
I said, “What I meant was, how big of a ceremony and how fancy would you want everything to be? How long would you want to wait?”
We got married in a civil ceremony a couple weeks later, two days after I turned 60. We kept that quiet and then had a low-key ceremony a month later in her hometown with about 50 friends and relatives.
And that was it. I don’t think I ever did ask her to marry me. I just started a conversation about what would be involved.
We had been dating for several months and were pretty sure that marriage was inevitable, but we had not made any serious plans. I picked out a ring with a smoky topaz stone, (she had already mentioned that she did not like diamonds, but did like topaz). I took her to dinner for her birthday and proposed, there. She had made it clear that she was not in a hurry, but was not going to wait forever. I had a speech prepared about how long she would wait for me. She pretty much dismissed that, so I just asked her and presented the ring while we sat at dinner. (No knee bending for me.)
Then I found out that even though I only had one day left at my job, (I’d been RIFfed, but found a new employer), a program had crashed that I needed to fix), so I took her into the office while I spent a few minutes correcting the problem, then took her home.
On the topic of asking parental consent, we walked into her parents’ home the next weekend, I asked her dad if I could marry her. His response: “Hell, she’s a grown-up, ask her yourself.”
We will have lasted 40 years, next August.
