There are many, many wedding related threads here lately so I thought I would add one more!
How did you propose or how were you proposed to by your SO? Bonus points for excessively sweet or excessively funny stories!
Mine isn’t excessively anything (including interesting) but here goes.
As I mentioned in the ring thread, I had received a phonecall from my now-wife while she was at a flea market with my mom, talking about how she saw some neat antique diamond ring. A little while later, my mom called me and asked if I wanted her to pick it up for me. I told her to buy it and so she did.
A few months later, my wife and I had plans to see a show (Regina Spektor) in Chicago. I decided that this would be the weekend to propose. I should note that our “proposal status” had kind of slipped to a lukewarm rating. She had thought at least once that I was going to propose at some event and I didn’t and she had kind of resigned herself to a wait. Anyway, I got us a nice hotel room, booked us reservations for dinner at a nice restaurant and bought tickets for a river tour for the next day. She was surprised to learn that I had planned a whole weekend around the show but happy.
As for the proposal itself, it was at the restaurant. We were waiting on food when I handed her the box. While she was opening it, I asked her to marry me. She didn’t hear me and looked at the ring for a few moments and then asked if there was a question that was supposed to go with it. So I had to ask again. She said yes and we had a wonderful weekend including going to a bunch of stores looking for something to temporarily size her ring until we could get it to a jewelry shop. I suppose I should have sized it before but I was nervous about getting it wrong since I didn’t want to screw with the ring any more than we had to and risk damaging it.
When my-then-boyfriend, Dave, proposed to me, he did it by putting my engagement ring onto the top of a little toy bluebird, then putting it into a plaster Easter egg along with some other stuff in an Easter basket he’d made up for me. I’d been squeeing over the cute fuzzy toys when I picked up the egg and opened it, seeing the bird with this ring-like object on its head but not registering what it was. I gave it another look, then I said, “Dave, is this what I think it is?”
He started grinning ear to ear and said, “You betcha.” He took the ring off of the bird’s head and got down on his knees to propose. I started crying, so Dad comes into the kitchen and seeing me crying and Dave on his knees, started laughing. I guess Dave had called my folks a couple days beforehand to tell them what he planned to do when he came to visit that weekend, but neither of them thought he’d be able to pull it off without spilling the beans.
That little bird now has pride of place on the bookshelf near the TV, and any time I feel down or pissed off at the world, I get that bird down and remember opening a plastic Easter egg and realizing that I wasn’t going to be alone any more, that someone loved me. We’ve been married 14 years now and I wouldn’t change a thing.
Mine was very anticlimactic. As I mentioned in another thread, we both knew it was going to happen, and we were mostly just tired of still not being married to each other, so it was pretty much planned out. We literally discussed it on the way home. “OK, I’ll drop you off, you talk to my son, and then I’ll come home and you can ask me.” She’s not that close with her father, so we decided I should ask her son’s permission instead of her father. And that’s how it happened. In her bedroom - no fuss, no muss.
She still won’t let me live it down.
Mine involved subterfuge and dishonesty. I told my fiancée-to-be that we were going to our best friends’ apartment for dinner (which, technically, we were). We get to their building and call them to buzz us in. They buzz us in and (unbeknownst to FTB) skedaddle out of the apartment, leaving the door unlocked. We go upstairs and enter the now-vacated apartment. A quiche is warming in the oven, music is on the stereo, the candles are lit, and I whip out the engagement ring. Tears, acceptance of proposal, we eat dinner, and after an hour or so our friends come back and we all drink champagne together.
Mine wasn’t really a proposal so much (okay, there was one, but the moment was rather personal) as it was practicality. I’d come down to visit for a three week stay to celebrate our anniversary, my birthday, and a friend’s wedding. Also in there was a trip to a lawyer to find out how to get me a visa to live here. In the end, it came down to ‘get married’, which we were planning anyways–just not yet. Having been dating a year long distance, and this being our first time seeing each other in five months, neither of us was too keen on going back to that. He told me he wished I could stay, I said I didn’t want to leave.
A couple weeks later, we were married.
Really, by that point, even though he hadn’t proposed we knew it was only a matter of time. So during a romantic moment, he asked and I accepted. (It wasn’t that fun telling my parents though…they’re cool with it now though).
My story of how **The Superhero **proposed to me is here.
makes note to give mlerose bonus points
He looked over at me and said, “Wanna get married?” and I said, “Okay.” I know. Pure magic.
My (now wife) hates the desert and we had been going back and forth about getting married, particularly because I was going to be leaving for graduate school in a few months out of state.
On my birthday in February, she asked if there was anything I wanted to do, so I said I wanted to go hiking in the desert - which got a nasty look from her. Ultimately, she agreed to go and we hiked around a nice waterfall area, conveniently finishing near sunset. I told her I knew of a really nice overlook and took her to Font’s Point in the Anza Borrego desert. Here’s the view:
I got down on one knee and asked if she’d spend every sunset with me. She was crying and said “yes”, at which point I said, “see, the desert isn’t all bad”
I’ve never proposed to anyone (except as a joke), and I’m not sure if I will in the near future (If I do, I’m pretty sure the answer will be yes).
But I’ll share the story of my niece.
She was in my brother’s car, in the passenger seat. Her mother was in the back seat. On the side of the road was a sign with a single word on it. A bit down the road was another, then another. Five in all. They read
JESSICA
WILL
YOU
MARRY
ME?
After that was her boyfriend down on one knee, holding up a ring.
She was too busy talking with her mother to notice. My brother had to turn the car around and drive by it again.
Okay, so I knew that we were going to get engaged. I knew that the question as coming. I knew that I would say yes.
I just didn’t know when it was coming. Well, not really.
6 months into our relationship I was ready and waiting. 9 months. Nothing. 11 months. Nothing. Then it was Christmas. At my parents’ house. In the country. A perfect layer of snow covering the hills. I knew something must be up. It could have been the romance in the air. It could have been that you had muttered something about a year being the ‘right time’.
Christmas morning, we opened presents. No ring. Okay, no problem. There was snow on the hills. I could wait.
“A walk?” you ask. “Sure”, I say. So off we go. Off to the local golf course. I love golf courses in the snow. Nobody there, perfect snow. Everything ‘just so’.
So off we go. Me. My lovely boyfriend. The two dogs. And my mother.
Half way around, you pull me off to one side. My mother is in the distance, playing with a dog. The other dog is running around our feet. You get to one knee, in the snow. Oh. Here. Really?
You propose. I say yes. My mother looks confused. The ring is too big. Nevermind. The snow is perfect. The hills are candescent. I said yes.
Three years later, I won’t let him forget that I was proposed to while my mother was off in the distance probably laughing her ass off. Trying to look surprised when I hauled my ass through the snow to show her the ring.
Darling. If you’re reading this…I love you. It was perfect.
If you’re not. It was still perfect.
Funny this thread should come up now.
I met the Special Lady Friend (SLF) back in college-- junior college, to be exact. She was the president of the Hmong club, which throws a big giant party every year called Asian Prom. It’s an interesting experience, a big hall full of Asians interspersed with the occasional white guy suffering from yellow fever (I know that term is no longer really acceptable to some people, but it’s really the best way to describe these strange people who narrow their romantic interests to a single race).
She was passing out fliers with her friend, and insisted I and my friends go. Sounded fun, so we set about trying to find dates. She even offered to set me up with a friend of hers. There may have been the implication that she was trying to do more for her friend than just get her a date for the event, which vicariously benefited yours truly. Sounded great. I agreed to meet this friend.
I met her. And promptly refused to do anything with her. She was not attractive on the outside. What I saw of her personality told me she felt she was entitled to having things her way. She was something of a trailer-park princess.
A few days before the dance, the SLF’s date fell through. So we went together. Her friend had started seeing a guy, so they went together. My friend went stag, and the two of us got plastered before going. It was fun, and SLF stayed in contact over the summer.
We started seeing each other that fall. We saw the movie “The Ring” on our first date. Things got hot and heavy pretty quick once we got the ball rolling, and we were soon attached at the hip. Literally at times.
Several months in, the subject of marriage came up. Nobody asked anybody, we were just talking about it. Her stance on the subject? “We can’t get married until we own two houses.”
You have to understand, I was well on my way to becoming a junior college dropout. Meanwhile, she had just gotten involved in a MLM mortgage company as a processor (yes, she was working on those loans). She was going places. I, the pothead boyfriend, was not.
I had been hopeful. It would be great to be married. I dunno why I wanted to marry her, it just felt like the right thing to do. But I gradually came to terms with the fact that it would never happen.
That’s how it stayed for years. I stayed in my classes at the JC, not really giving a damn about them, and working menial little jobs. She kept working and taking classes as well. There was no more talk of marriage. It was a non-factor.
At about the time her tenure at the cult-- I mean, mortgage company-- was coming to an end, I was offered my first job in my field of choice, journalism. Now, this industry won’t exactly get you on the Forbes list, but we had been barely scraping by since we moved in together (she didn’t want to marry a bum who delivers furniture, but was perfectly happy living with one). Suddenly her boyfriend had a real job. With benefits. Her man didn’t just have a job, he had a career.
“Yay, we can get married now!” she said when I told her. My eyebrow shot up.
“Wha…?” I replied, as eloquently as I could. “I thought you didn’t wanna get married.”
“Yeah, but that was when we were poor.”
“We’re still gonna be poor, babe,” I said. “Just not as poor.”
Our roles had reversed. Now she was the one trying to talk me into the idea. It struck me as odd that she would reverse so quickly over so little. I was suspicious. But eventually I warmed up to it. I decided that, yeah, I’d dream the dream again. Just as the non-marriage had become fact, so did the inevitable marriage.
So one evening, we were having dinner at our favorite place, Kim’s Vietnamese Cuisine, later changed to Kim’s Seafood Restaurant. That place-- fucking fantastic. High-end Vietnamese, where the French influence really shows, for maybe a few bucks more than you might spend at Denny’s. Five-course meals, complete with soup and salad, and caramel flan for dessert. Unbeatable.
There we were, our bellies full, when I said to her, " So. Are you ready to go get your ring?"
That was it. That how I proposed. “Let’s go get ya a ring.” She was ecstatic. Sears had a 70% off sale, so off we went to get her a piece of metal and rock. The wedding is on our six-year anniversary on Friday. This Friday. The one two days from now.
She likes to laugh at me and tell the story of how her man sat up from a post-meal stupor at Kim’s Vietnamese Cuisine and said, “Let’s go get ya a ring.” Her friends think it’s hilarious.
Last night, we were running around getting stuff for the wedding. As we came to Shaw Avenue, there was Kim’s. The lights were out. There was a real estate sign hanging from the awning. We haven’t eaten there much recently, so I feel a little bit responsible. There’s a little Chinese place down the street from our apartment. We’re already planning on eating there more in the hopes of keeping the place around.
Post-coital, my boyfriend of less than two months propped himself up on his elbow, looked at me, and said, “Marry me.” I smiled and said, “OK.”
There was no popping the question, although it being Hawaii, the courtship was magical. (We were grad students at the U of Hawaii.) At some point neither one of us can pinpoint – and we have tried – it just became assumed by both of us that we would get married.
Mine is kind of long, and involves an incredible amount of cluelessness on my part.
We’d been together for 5 years, living together for 2. We’d talked about getting married, had even been out shopping one day, and got sized up for rings “just in case”. He’d always said that when the time came, he wanted to propose to me, so I was just waiting for whenever he felt the time was right.
One week he suggested that we get up early in the morning, take a trip to the lookout on a hill that overlooks our city, and have a picnic breakfast while watching the sunrise. “Sounds great” says I, not suspecting anything. Romantic sunrise picnic? Clue number 1, but no, I didn’t think anything of it.
The night before the picnic, the forecast was for an overcast, cloudy day. I said that we should maybe skip the picnic, we weren’t going to be able to see the sunrise because of the clouds, and that we should postpone for another weekend. He insisted, rather forcefully, that no, we were going anyway! I thought “Geez, what’s the point?” but shrugged & said OK. He’s normally so easygoing that it was kind of out of character for him to insist, but I figured if it was so damned important to him, fine, we’d go on a picnic! Clue number 2 missed.
Next morning, we get up at around 3am, pack the picnic stuff, and drive to the hill. It was summer, so it was warm enough, even though it was cloudy. We were just looking out over the lights of the city, when we heard a car driving around the lookout area, and tooting it’s horn. “I wonder what that’s all about” says he, and runs off to the carpark. I think “It’s some hoon doing burnouts in the carpark, why should we be checking this out?”
He comes back from the carpark with an enormous bouquet of roses. He’d arranged to have them delivered to the lookout at 5am! “Oh, how sweet and lovely” thinks I. Clue number 3 missed.
We start feasting on the picnic breakfast, strawberries, champagne, etc. Some other people arrive at the lookout, but as we are obviously having a romantic picnic, they found a spot a discreet distance away to watch the sunrise.
As the sun finally starts to come up (behind the clouds), he says that he has written me a poem. And proceeds to read me a lovely, personally written poem about how wonderful I am, how much he loves me, etc. By now, it should be screamingly obvious to any normal person what was coming next. But, not me!
And finally at the conclusion of the poem, he starts rummaging around in his pocket for something. “What is he doing?” thinks I. And then he pulls the ring box out of his pocket, and drops to one knee.
And the penny finally dropped for me. :smack:
He proposed, I said yes, and burst into tears. And we got a nice round of applause from the other people at the lookout. 
I swear I’m not usually that clueless! In my defence, he’s a romantic kind of guy anyway, and was always doing sweet things like that for me all the time!
I have two stories… one is mine. The other is a buddies, who is not a doper- but the story fits the theme and deserves to be told. 
MY Story- which graces the pages in the archives somewhere I’m sure is as follows:
My (then) girlfriend and I had been together for a few years. It was understood that we would be married at some point. I had promised her that she would be surprised by my proposal- despite her insistance that she would be ready at every moment. My plan had to be solid.
Christmas season approached and I figured it was time to do it. Knowing Christmas season would be a time she would definitely be expecting something. I started early. While she was at work- I went off to a local jewelery place to look around. Having done much research on diamonds- the process was actually fairly painless. I picked out the ring and diamond- it was sent off to be processed. (A loose diamond company type of deal).
A few weeks later- I went to pick it up. Unexpectedly, Then g/f calls saying she is coming home early from work and asked if I wanted to meet her for lunch. Crap, says I. “Ummm… No… I’m actually already out with my buddy- we just had lunch and were gonna hit some golf balls.” “Oh, OK… well see you when you get home.” Me- Hurriedly dials buddy- not answering, crap… “Buddy- should Katie ask you for some reason. You and I had lunch today- then went to the driving range. We went to Chevy’s… I had flautas!”
Pick up ring- actually go to my real planned lunch date with her friends to get ring approval, and handoff the ring to her friend for safe keeping. (To prevent her from uncovering anything.) This is October.
After Thanksgiving- then g/f starts to get excited. I think it is clear that she is really expecting a diamond for Christmas this year. A couple of weeks before Christmas I sit her down… "Listen- I am telling you this because you are so excited, and you keep hinting at it, and I don’t want you to be disappointed and have a rotten Christmas. You are NOT GETTING A RING. And I don’t mean it like, ‘hahaha i sai dyou’re not getting a ring and here’s a ring!’ I mean it. I’m serious. I really don’t want you to ruin your Christmas by getting all excited about something that’s just not happening yet. I’m sorry… you are really not getting a ring. " (She later admitted- that this talk was 100% successful- she really believed me. I was very deadly serious- and I’m rarely a very serious guy. I displayed so much concern for her christmas happiness. I had her all the way.)
A few days before Christmas I am able to successfully run a ring transfer mission at a movie with friends. (Which included me sneaking through the bathrooms to the opposite side of the theater, out to our car and back without her noticing) The ring is now hidden in it’s final hiding spot- underneath the chair in the living room.
Christmas Eve Eve- I prearranged with her step-mom to allow her Dad and I some alone time so I could formally ask his permission. Which he granted.
Christmas Eve I convince her that we should do our Christmas that night, because we were going to my mom’s in the morning, her mom’s in the afternoon. Let’s not rush our day tomorrow more than we have to. She opens all her gifts (I bought her a regular Christmas worth of gifts for under the tree.) and goes through her stocking completely… no ring. I can see that she still had hope remaining as she was somewhat crestfallen. “I know you told me there would be no ring- but I still had hope.” “I’m sorry- I told you! This is why I told you.” I make sure to place all my stocking stuff back into my stocking and transport stockings back to the living room.
We go to sleep… in the middle of the night I wake up to go to the “bathroom” I sneak into the living room and place her ring in her stocking.
The next morning I wake up and ask her if she thinks Santa came.
“hahahah… funny…”
“No… you think he came? Let’s go check?!”
I go into the living room and hold up my overflowing stocking, “He came he came!!!”
Future Wife wanders in, “That’s your stuff from last night you moron.”
“Oh- well, what about yours?!”
Future wife, “Mine is EMPTY!” She swings at it and see’s there’s some weight to it and pauses.
Me: “Something is in there?! HE CAME HE CAME!”
FW: “Whatever- you just put something in there?”
Me: (As she’s reaching in) “When did i have time or opportunity to place something in there.”
FW: (Pulls out ring box- look of shock and awe crosses her face… She opens it and stares… silence for several moments.)
Me: “Will you Marry Me”
FW: “Yes” <sobs>
So that is my story- A lot of planning and thinking ahead. But well worth it for watching a minute of pure surprise and joy.
Story #2 will be shorter- I promise. Since It doesn’t involve me- I can’t make it as humerous as my friend. However it just tickles the crap out of me.
My friend is divorced once- and came out really anti-marriage. He managed to find a really nice, sweet girl (A serious step up from his ex. That’s not just bitterness or anger.) But he had some animosity towards the idea of marriage from his divorce. However his new love was clearly wanting to get married- she was willing to wait it out, however.
So he arranges to go on a dinner/site-seeing train tour of the Columbia Gorge, for this romantic evening out. Well- the whole night is a disaster from the start. The car breaks down en route- the train people screwed up his tickets- so instead of having the private table he had paid for he has to share with another couple. The other couple turn out to be swingers who spend the entire night hitting on my friend and his girlfriend, trying to get them to go to their hotel with them when the train ride is through. Very unromantic and uninspired.
The whole night left him so flustered and frustrated he just decided he’d keep the ring in his pocket for the night. What was a solid romantic evening plan turned into a non-romantic comedy of errors.
On the way back- he’s clearly angry- she thinks at how the evening turned sour. But he’s mostly mad because his grand plan to prompose went sour along with it. But she convinces him to stop at a Shari’s and they’ll have dessert. He can calm down, and they’ll have a relaxing drive home.
So, he’s at Shari’s involved in his pie when he realizes that he’s told some people about his plans. People that will call her in the morning, or that evening when they think she’s home. People who may have already left her voicemails congratulating her. (Her parents, her close friends, etc) So now he realizes- that not only does he HAVE to propose to her before they get home, now was pretty much the time. So not only does his romantic evening on the train go south- he’s about to propose to her over a pie at Shari’s of all places.
So he just pulls out the box and says something like… “Well, I wanted t his night to be special- but that just isn’t going to happen. So here- maybe we can do special on one of the “married” nights. What do you think?”
And there was, of course, tears and affirmations.
sniff
That is beautiful!
You get bonus points too!
Being married twice before I vowed to never go through that again. I was happily single, raising two great boys. I wore a simple silver band on my ring finger to ward off would be suitors. Life was good.
Thanksgiving comes along and we get an invite from my brother to come up to spend the holiday with him. A little odd, we’ve never spent holidays together. But I was feeling nostalgic I guess so we made the drive. We get there and who is there but my best (guy) friend from high school. We both always felt an attraction back in the day, but the timing was never right. I was either seeing someone else, or he was.
Anyway, we spent the weekend catching up on the past 20 years. He was currently dating my brother’s ex-wife. (I know, soap opera right!) Anyway, at the end of the weekend he takes my “promise ring to myself” and tells me he is going to marry me one day. I laugh and tell him for the 50th time that I’ve been there, done that, not doing it again.
Fast forward a ways. He rids himself of his current girlfriend, calls me, and we start dating. I’m still adamant about not getting married.
The following year, we are at Taco Bell with my boys and he casually walks over to the contiment buckets. He’s there for some time and I’m wondering what the hell is taking him so long. He finally comes back gets down on one knee and hands me a hot sauce package. I look at him, my kids, and the package in my hand. WTH? I don’t like hot sauce. He is still sitting there with this stupid look on his face. My kids are grinning like cheshire cats. I’m confused.
I turn the package over and it says “Will you marry me?” printed on the package.
We’ve been married since June 21st and I’ve never been happier.