Stories please.
Did he say yes right away or resist at first? How did it work out?
Did he say no?
Other things I’m wondering:
Why did you ask when you did?
How long had you known each other/been dating?
You know… details…
Thx.
I said “Hey. I need insurance because I am getting too old to be on my parents’ policy”. He said “Hmmmm”. I brought it up a couple times over a few months, and after a while he was like “Well, I’d want a stainless steel wedding ring. Do they make those?” I said “I dunno, let me see.” I found a set for cheap, and one Friday noon (his day off) I woke him up and said 'Let’s go down to the courthouse and get married". He grumbled a little about getting up so early, and then we did. Went out for dinner afterward, told friends and family over the next month.
It wasn’t a commitment issue with him: we were committed. But he didn’t see much point in marriage. There had literally never been a successful one in his family, not in 3 generations. I come from marrying stock, so it was important to me. I think what it eventually came down to is that he realized it was important to me and he really didn’t care–and the insurance thing was a real concern–so we went ahead and did it. Even now, I think he sees the actual married part as a convenience thing: it simplifies our lives in certain ways, and he like simple. I think he thinks of the emotional attachment as separate. He also really didn’t want a wedding, but I didn’t either, and once he understood that, it was easier.
I did.
I had been in the middle of falling in love before I truly realized it.
We had been dating for 4 years, living together for 2. We had already spoken about many beliefs and values, we were on the same page for just about everything. We were in our late 20’s, and could have gone on as we were, but I knew that he was the man I wanted as a life partner, so I asked.
This guy did (and does) NOTHING in a hurry. Every purchase, large or small, is researched for days and days, every life decision is labored over for months. And that was how it was with my proposal. I didn’t do or say anything dramatic. I just sort of blurted it out. He asked to consider it for awhile. I remember he wrote (no internet back then) his old girlfriend, he later showed me the reply. And then he said yes.
In May 2012 we will have been married for 30 years.
My Wife did. 13 years ago.
We had been living together for about 1.5 years at that point, and we knew we where going to get married. Never really discussed it. Just knew.
It was time, and my Wife brought it up and picked the date.
I’m not really sure who asked. Maybe me? We were discussing marriage and the gist of the conversation was something like this:
Least Original User Name Ever: (says something that makes me think he wants to get married)
Me: Do you want to get married?
LOUNE: Sure! Pick a date.
Me: Just to be clear, if I said we’re going down to the courthouse tomorrow, you’d be fine with that?
LOUNE: Yeah!
That was over Memorial weekend last May. The first day that I had off that we didn’t have plans was June 10th, so we got married that day and went to the casino afterwards. We’d been dating and living together for about 3.5 years at that point. As far as why, we’d discussed that we wanted to eventually get married in previous conversations, but at the time when we decided to finally do it, it simplified a lot of things as far as finances go, plus then he could be on my health insurance.
Hm. Maybe? I know I was the first who suggested getting an engagement ring, because I wanted my grandmother to quit complaining about us living together. So, we got a ring. Several years later, when finances and timing were right, we planned the actual wedding, but I’m not sure whose idea that was.
We’d been dating for four years before the “engagement,” and we lived together for 3.5 more before we got married.
I did. He said yes immediately. We’d been dating for, oh, a year and nine months, and living together for a year and a half of that. I think we both knew pretty soon after we started living together that things were heading that way; I just ended up being the one to blurt it out first. 
It was a pretty short engagement, too (4 months and change); I guess our relationship has been one in which once the decision has been made, why procrastinate? (The moving in happened on a week’s notice, and involved 700 miles of schlepping in a U-Haul.)
Well, Mr. Tao asked first, and did it with a ring and a nice weekend out someplace nice. It was obviously going to come up, because one doesn’t move across the country to live with someone one isn’t considering seriously. 
We’d been living together about 2 years at that point, but, for whatever reason, when he asked I couldn’t say yes. Not no, either, just…didn’t know. Didn’t know WHY I didn’t know, either, which was frustrating for both of us. On top of which I basically cried for 4 hours. 
Being a smart man, and knowing I’d gone 44 years without ever going to the altar and that maybe that was just never going to be an option for me, he agreed with the notion of just going along as we had been, since it worked; why mess with it?
About 6 months later I realized I was looking around for a wedding ring for him. Don’t ask what changed, because nothing DID change. Except probably something inside me that finally got used to the idea, I don’t know. I’ve always been a shier, like a horse; maybe I just needed time to internalize it, I still don’t know. The only thing of significance to occur during that time was that I made peace with probably the only ex that I still had any feelings for. (Even if we’d lived next door to each other nothing would have happened, but it’d ended badly and having that resolution was nice, in and of itself)
Anyway, without any fanfare, at some point I sneaked in a ‘let’s get married!’ into whatever daily business was going on. I had to do this a few times before he took me seriously, and I am pretty sure he didn’t believe me until we actually did the deed. We were going to sneak off to Vegas, but he has two boys who were so excited about attending that we took a day off, found a judge, and had a very small and sweet ceremony that was just perfect. The ceremony even included the kids, which I thought was wonderful.
Anyway, it’s been about six months, and I think now he believes it happened a little, lol! Of course he’s been married twice before, so I figure it’ll really sink in once it lasts longer than those did. 
These are sweet stories… lovin’ 'em!
Yep. And got rejected. It wasn’t like a romantic, formal proposal though.
Yes, I proposed. We had been together long-distance for a little over a year and the plan was that I was moving cross-country to move in with him and go back to school, and we’d see how that worked out and then think about marriage.
Instead, we came out of Zankou Chicken and got in the car and I turned to him and said, “Will you marry me?” He didn’t hesitate.
I just knew that I had to ask. I was pretty certain he’d say yes, or the worst likely answer would be “Let’s not decide right now.” But I felt like I was fair to burst with it, so I just blurted it out.
We went to Disneyland the next day to celebrate.
It was a couple of days after Christmas. My now-husband and I had bought a house and moved in together about three months prior, and we had a lot of things we needed to buy for it. We would go to Lowe’s or Bed Bath and Beyond and drop a hundred or two dollars, easy. The running joke was that we should just get married so we could register for all the stuff instead of buying it.
So we had just spent our Christmas gift cards at BB&B, and as we were driving home, he made that joke again.
“We should just set a date and do it, then,” I blurted out.
“Did you just propose?” he replied.
“Um…I guess so.”
When we got home, we set a date. Romantic, isn’t it?
Dang. 
I did.
I said: If you want me to stay with you, here, in Australia, then we have to get married. Defacto visas take a year’s worth of living together and I don’t have a visa that will allow me to stay that long.
He said: Ok, let’s do that, then.
We got married in our living room a month later. That was almost 9 years ago.
My wife proposed to me. It’s a very boring story, but it’s one data point.
Joe
Me too! Oh, well. Good riddance.
My gf and I had been living together a while, when she “proposed”.
GF: “Hey, after both our divorces are final do you wanna get married?”
Me: “Ummm. Yeah, I guess so.”
GF: “We could have a really crazy reception with that band your buddy plays in and a bartender.”
Me: “Cool! Keep me informed as plans solidify!”
You slay me, kayaker.
Yes! We’d talked about the future, marriage, etc., and it was clear we both wanted to get married, but my now-husband always takes forever to do anything! I told him that we needed to make it public eventually, set a date for the wedding and all that, and that if he wanted to propose to me, he should do so by my birthday (which was about seven months after this conversation) or else I would Take Steps.
Months went by. I found a ring I liked online. He bought it for me; it was sent to his work address, and I didn’t see it after that. We went shopping for wedding rings but didn’t buy them. Seven months went by. My birthday went by. The day after my birthday, I was in his apartment with a set of image-stabilizing binoculars that I knew he had been lusting after, concealed in my backpack. I took it out, got down on my knees, presented it to him, and asked him to marry me. He said yes (it was really sweet). He then got out my ring, which he’d been carrying around in his work bag for the past couple of months, apparently
It was awfully romantic; it was also nerve-wracking even though I knew he would say yes! I have a whole new respect for guys doing this now…
My husband proposed twice, the first time only 6 weeks after we met. Both times I said “Too soon” and after the second proposal he told me that when I was ready I should let him know. About a year after we met I proposed to him and 3 months later we were married.