My dad stuck the engagement ring inside a stick of deodorant and then told my mom she needed to use it. A small argument broke out when Mom told Dad she didn’t need it. That’s how Redditors are made. I proposed to my wife in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
I was going for maximum cheesy. She got emotional and took a while to believe I was serious, even though I had the ring out. Since this was New York, strangers started shouting at her. “Hurry up, lady.
What’s it going to be? We don’t have all night. ” Someone even yelled, “Hey, I’ll marry him if you don’t hurry up. ”
I’d been dating this girl for about a month or two during college.
We lived close enough that summer to see each other frequently. I was over at her house, and we were getting stuff ready to grill when a car pulled up. We assumed it was friends we’d invited arriving early. She peeked out the window and gasped.
“Oh crap, it’s Matt. ”
Matt was an ex-boyfriend from high school. They’d broken up senior year, but he’d been pursuing her ever since, despite constant rejections. “Do you want me to take care of this?
” I asked. “No, I’ll deal with it. He’ll just try to start a fight with you. ”
So I sat by the window and watched the whole thing.
It was short. He said he wanted to talk. She said she really didn’t want to—she was having people over, and besides, they’d talked everything out a while ago. It was settled.
He was a crappy boyfriend. It had been three years. She moved on, and he needed to do the same. That’s when he doubled down.
“I know why we’ve been apart. We were in high school. We were kids. We weren’t adults.
But you can’t ever see me as an adult. Not until I man up. You need to know that I’m serious about this. That’s why I have this.
”
He got down on one knee and pulled a ring box out of his shirt pocket, like a jewelry commercial. He opened it. “Beth, will you marry me? ”
She tried hard not to burst out laughing but only halfway succeeded.
“Oh my god, no. Go away. There are people coming over. Matty, don’t embarrass yourself any more than you already have.
Seriously, just go. ”
He had a quizzical look on his face—shock and disbelief. He really thought this was the right play. After a few seconds, he got up, put the box back in his pocket, and walked to his car without saying another word.
She came back inside. “I can’t believe that just happened,” she said, a mix of amusement and anger. I was mostly on the side of amusement, so I asked if the ring was nice. It wasn’t even a ring.
It was a tiny note that said “any ring you want. ” That note definitely showed he was an adult. I proposed to my wife in Dublin, which is harder than it sounds because it’s not a romantic city. After dinner, I decided the Ha’penny Bridge was about the best place to get the job done.
Right in the middle of my proposal, I heard the unmistakable sound of a drunk guy peeing off the bridge not ten feet behind me. Ireland has never let me down. I didn’t witness this one, but my best friend just got engaged. Her fiancé proposed in a little French deli.
She had just put a massive mouthful of pie in her face when she saw him get down on one knee. She was so shocked she spat the pie out all over herself, all over him, all over everything. She just sort of nodded. It was very like her to do something like that.
So it’s all fine. Still, I don’t think he expected pie in his face. At least not until later that night. My favorite was in Vegas at the Bellagio Botanical Gardens.
Everyone was doing their thing—snapping pictures, wandering around—when one guy got down on a knee and gave this little speech. Many people stopped to watch, encircling the two while he finished. The girl, hands covering her mouth, began to cry. Some of the crowd’s hearts melted at the end of the speech, but there was no reply yet.
The girl kept standing there. At that point, it got awkward. Gasps and giggles rippled through the crowd. You could see the dude’s mind racing.
He started looking at the floor, realizing what he’d done was probably a huge mistake. The masses began to feel horrible for the poor guy. But the chick, probably realizing what was going on around her, shook her head. Then the words that came out of her mouth were, “All right, yes.
”
The guy stood up and started to wobble—probably blood flow issues from the five-plus minutes of awkward kneeling. He grabbed ahold of her and fell into an awkward hug. The lesson: make sure she’s ready for it. Rule of thumb, when you propose should be the surprise, not that you’re proposing.
I saw a couple in a jewelry store while my wife and I were looking. The guy asked to see a ring. “Natalie, will you marry me? ” She flipped.
“Oh my god. Oh my god. Yes. Yes.
Yes. ” He said, “Great. ” Then he handed the ring back to the employee and tried to leave the store. He’d proposed with a borrowed ring.
He tried to explain that he couldn’t afford the ring but wanted to propose correctly. She slapped him so hard my face hurt. She put her whole body into it and started screaming about how her mother was right. No clue if they ever got together.
It was hard to watch. I would much rather know my boyfriend couldn’t afford a ring at the time than pull that crap. Jeez. I know one that was awkward, not necessarily terrible.
I was eating dinner at an Applebee’s at one of those high tables near the bar. There was a couple sitting at the bar. After a few minutes, the guy pushed his chair back and got down on one knee. He started proposing.
Just then, a waiter walked around the corner, tripped over the groom-to-be’s outstretched leg, and dropped a tray of food. He said, “Crap. Did I just ruin what I think I ruined? ” The girl ended up saying yes.
The server didn’t ruin much. I didn’t witness this, but a redneck friend of mine proposed to his girlfriend in a Kmart parking lot because he couldn’t wait until Red Lobster. I was on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty a few months back when we saw a plane writing something in the sky. Extremely slowly.
Ridiculously slow. I know it takes a while to write something in the sky, but it seriously took like twenty-five minutes for this dude to write “Mary” in the sky. By the time he finished her name, the “Mar” had faded. He should have just gotten a plane to tow a banner.
I was on vacation in Las Vegas about a month ago. Across from the Hoover Dam is the Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, a huge bridge that goes across the valley. My family and I were walking along the bridge, taking pictures and taking in the view. We passed a couple where the guy had his camera set up on a tripod, aimed at the bridge instead of the dam.
Suddenly, we saw him take a knee and pull out a ring right as we passed. We kept walking because we didn’t want to be intrusive. Fast forward about twenty minutes. We were in the parking lot getting ready to leave when we saw the couple getting into separate cars with frowns on their faces.
The guy had a video of his own rejected proposal. I used to work the jewelry counter at Target. Two kids, probably thirteen or fourteen, decided it was time to get officially engaged. They bought a cheap cubic zirconia ring, ten-karat gold overlay, $9.
99. The boy proudly paid in ones and a handful of change. He got down on one knee, said he loved her forever, and put the ring on the girl. She giggled, “Dad is going to kill me.
” Then they ran giggling into the night. I like to imagine they lived happily ever after. Or that they were eaten by wolves. I was at Taco Bell with a few friends, including a guy and a girl who’d been dating for a few weeks.
A few of us got tacos, but the girl only got a Diet Coke. Her boyfriend asked her, “Do you want hot sauce? ” She said, “No, I just got a Diet Coke. What the heck would I want hot sauce for?
” He said, “I don’t know, but I just think it would be really good if you had some hot sauce. ” They argued about whether she needed hot sauce for a while until finally she said, “Okay, whatever. ” He went over, grabbed a packet, came back, and got down on one knee. He handed her the packet—it said “Will you marry me?
” on it—and pulled a cheap-looking engagement ring out of his pocket. Keep in mind they’d been dating about three weeks at that point, and we were in the middle of Taco Bell. She got this look of absolute shock on her face, then said yes. They got married a few months later.
They got divorced a few months after that. That was the most humiliating trip to Taco Bell of my life. I work at Universal Studios in Orlando. A few months ago, I watched a Fear Factor live show.
One of the stunts: a lady sits in a chair with a Plexiglass box around her head, her arms strapped down. Someone spins a wheel, and whatever it lands on goes on her head—snakes, scorpions, spiders, or cockroaches. This girl was the contestant. Her man spun the wheel.
It landed on scorpion. They did the stunt. At the end, her man grabbed the mic and gave his spiel while the girl was still strapped in the chair. He didn’t get a real answer until the poor girl was out of the chair.
Super awkward. Great way to start a marriage. He must be very optimistic. While reading that response, I only thought, “And whatever it lands on, she’ll be pleasantly surprised when an engagement ring falls into the Plexiglass box instead of a scorpion.
” Then I got to the end. I wasn’t there for it, but my parents’ proposal was pretty anticlimactic. They’d been dating for five or six years already. It was basically “Well, I guess it’s about that time.
” On my birthday, she was taking me out to eat, and I couldn’t find anywhere to hide the ring. She asked if everything was okay, and I said, “Might as well get this out of the way. ” I proposed to her in our garage. I proposed on a dinner cruise and told her I’d throw her overboard if she said no.
The couple next to us interrupted to ask if she needed help. Good for them. I’d like to think I’d stop a murder, too. My best friend’s husband proposed after a long-distance relationship.
He told her that when he visited for Christmas leave, he had a surprise for her. She badgered him over the phone to tell her what it was because she hates surprises. He finally gave in. “I’m going to propose.
” She promptly called me right after to screech in my ear about it. My wife despises surprises, no matter how safe or well-intentioned. I managed to surprise her when I proposed, but it was in our house without anyone else around. Still sweet and thoughtful, just not public.
I pretty much don’t bother trying to surprise her with anything anymore because she hates it. My ex-husband proposed to me in the shower after picking a fight about elbow macaroni. I went into the shower to calm down, and he followed me, slipped the ring on my finger. How did he get the ring in the shower without me noticing?
He hid it under his fat roll. It was his mother’s cubic zirconia engagement ring from her second marriage. Every day I wish I’d said no. My high school sweetheart and I had been living together for several months when he caught the flu.
It was the first time I’d ever seen him really sick, and I was determined to take care of him. But after a few days, he got worse. I tried to convince him to go to the doctor, but since we didn’t have health insurance, he insisted he’d be fine. I gave in.
I tried to make him comfortable on the couch since it was closer to the bathroom, and he couldn’t keep anything down. Around midnight, he got delirious. He’d had a fever for days, dehydrated from throwing up all week, spouting gibberish. He babbled all over the couch and couldn’t stand up.
I told him I was putting my foot down—he was going to the doctor first thing in the morning. He suddenly got quiet and looked at me very seriously. “You are so good. You should marry me.
You want to marry me? ” Then he passed out. I was shocked but didn’t take him seriously, obviously. I focused on bringing him around so I could get him off the couch and into bed.
When morning rolled around, his fever had broken. Though weak and pale, he was doing much better. He asked how he’d gotten into bed because he couldn’t remember anything from the night before. I entertained him with the story of how I dragged him to bed after he proposed and passed out.
I thought the whole thing was funny, but he didn’t laugh. So I looked up, and he said, “Well, what was your answer? ”
We just celebrated our thirteenth wedding anniversary. It can be romantic under the right conditions.
My now ex-husband called me while he was at work and said, “If we get married, I get three paid days off that don’t count toward my vacation. Want to go to Vegas in October? ” It lasted a whole three years. Can’t blame the man for thinking about the future.
Every Jumbotron proposal in the history of ever. I go to fifteen to twenty baseball games a year, and there’s probably a proposal in at least ten of them. More often than not, since time is money on that screen, I’ll see the camera focus on the couple, see the proposal for like two whole seconds, and then it vanishes. I’ve seen more than one couple totally miss the window.
I told my now husband not to make a big deal out of his proposal, but I badgered him into giving me hints because I was afraid of that exact scenario. Good thing I did. He was planning to do it at an NFL game here in town. Instead, he proposed in our living room.
I saw a guy propose to his girlfriend in a Subway around nine at night. It was unbelievably awkward because it was just the three of us in the shop. She said no. The guy cried, and I still had to order my sub while they sat there.
I wasn’t there for it, but I saw the video. I work for a place that caters all sorts of events. We did this ridiculous rehearsal dinner for a wedding. I say ridiculous because I’d never heard of a rehearsal dinner needing an auditorium and several other spaces for guests.
The bride’s parents were loaded and just awful. Common accepted practice is that after all the guests have eaten, staff get to have a little plate. The bride’s father chewed us and our boss out for it, even though he was just going to have us pitch the leftovers at the end of the night. Anyway, before the guests arrived, the bride’s family handed me a DVD to play over the projection system.
It contained the couple’s engagement photos and music, but also video of the proposal. It was the most awkward thing I’ve ever seen. The guy walks into the house as her father opens the door. He looks so nervous—not nervous like he’s about to propose.
Nervous like he doesn’t know what to do on camera. The camera pans over, and his fiancée is standing at the top of a massive staircase. These people are obviously loaded, and she’s in probably her most elegant dress. It takes her almost two minutes to descend the staircase.
I know because I timed it, since it was on a constant loop all night. The guy awkwardly shuffles over to her, gets down on one knee, then adjusts his position for the camera. The ring is placed on her hand, and then they just sort of stand there. The video starts looping again.
It was the single least romantic thing I’ve ever seen. This happened three years ago. Some friends and I decided to road trip down to Orlando and hit the amusement parks like a couple of twenty-one-year-old children. We were in one of the Disney parks, Magic Kingdom perhaps, and I saw one of the craziest redneck things ever.
We were looking at a map, figuring out our plan of action, when all of a sudden we heard, “Boy, what the heck do you think you’re doing? ” Some guy about five feet away was on his knee with a ring out in front of a girl, and an older guy next to him was yelling. This is where it gets weird. The guy said, “That’s your dang cousin, you freaking idiot.
Get off your goddamn knees before I beat the pee out of you. ” This obviously got our attention. The guy doing the proposing started crying. “But I love her, and I want her to be my wife, and you and no one else can stop this from happening.
Mary, will you be my wife? ” Mary looked at him and said, “Why are you doing this? Don’t you ever talk to me again. I hate you for this.
” And she ran off. Then the guy ran in the other direction. The older dude was pissed beyond belief. I wanted to clap, but I felt like I’d have been killed.
Mine was pretty terrible. I was so nervous that when I got down on one knee, I was shaking so bad she at first thought I was having a heart attack. It got better from there. We’re getting married in January.
I was totally hammered when I did it. I needed the liquid courage. Her reply was, “Yes, but when you sober up, you better still feel the same. ”
My own proposal was kind of horrible.
While watching TV, I casually asked her if she’d ever done it with a married man. When she said no, I asked if she wanted to and offered her the ring. Mine was particularly bad. My girlfriend of five years at that point was at work, and I had the ring burning a hole in my pocket.
I was going to take her out to the beach for a picnic. I met her at her mother’s house, and she’d had a horrible, crappy day. She didn’t want to go out. She just wanted takeout and a movie.
What movie did she want to rent? Talladega Nights. Something she could laugh at. Halfway through the movie, we were lying on her bed talking.
No remote, so I crawled over and paused the movie. Crawled back. I’m kneeling next to the bed, and we’re talking. I love you, blah blah.
Finally, this dang ring is just burning. So I mentioned that I really want to spend the rest of my life with her. She had no clue. She said, “So do I.
” I pulled up the ring and asked, “Are you sure? ” She instantly started bawling and covered her face. Two minutes later, she nodded through tears, and we hugged. An hour later, we finished our Mexican food and the movie.
It doesn’t sound so bad. We’d been together for six years and been really close friends for five years before that. Lived on the same street as kids. Met when we were twelve, so our relationship was grounded on friendship.
Still, whenever we tell people, we try to leave out the part where Talladega Nights was paused in the background. Married four years and strong. Eleven years in a relationship. It’s not big, but it was special.
Almost like she said, “I’d like to be with you forever,” and you magically conjured a ring. I proposed to my husband in the worst way. Let me preface by saying I’d been married before, and I really, truly believed marriage was overrated. I’d already warned him many times that I’d never get married again.
We’d been in a long-distance relationship for about six years, sometimes off, sometimes on, but mostly on. At the time, we were kind of off, but still together. One night, he called me. I was sitting in a bar, not drunk yet, and he told me over the cell phone that he was being deployed to Afghanistan.
I immediately burst into tears because I realized how much I really do love him, and I was scared. So I proposed to him over the phone. He accepted. He went to Afghanistan.
He came back home. We continued on as normal. No wedding plans were made because I was busy with my business, not sure when I could leave the States to move to Canada. So it just sat on the back burner.
I was going to Canada for Christmas, the first time I’d visit his family for the holiday. Two weeks before I left, he showed up at my house in Phoenix. When I opened the door, he got down on one knee, proposed officially, and then handed me the invitation to our wedding. He’d planned the entire wedding.
All I had to do was show up. He was there to take me shopping for a dress. Some women might not like that, but I loved it. I adored it.
It was an awesome wedding. That was in December. I couldn’t move to Canada until April, and then we had to wait until June for a two-month honeymoon in Hawaii that just ended last night. I love this man.
Pilot here. A guy asked me to fly him and his girlfriend over a field where a hundred and fifty people had formed a heart and two rings. Huge show. I was really impressed.
When she saw it, her response was, “Look at all those idiots. How ridiculous is that? ” He did not ask his question that day. I proposed on the summit of a mountain we climbed together.
It was insurance against her saying no. She needed me to get back down. When I was waitressing, I saw a guy propose. The restaurant itself was okay, I guess, but they weren’t dressed up nicely as for a special occasion.
It was only early evening, and their kid was with them, massacring the table with crayons. She didn’t seem to say yes. They hastily paid the bill and both left very stony-faced. Dude, if you want to propose over dinner, at least get a little dressed up, go in the evening, and hire a babysitter.
Any restaurant that provides crayons and paper for kids to draw on is not the place to propose. I was once at a friend’s gig. He plays pretty crazy distorted rock with a ton of synthesizers. It was a low-key thing with only about twenty or thirty people there.
This drunk guy got up on stage halfway through my friend’s solo, grabbed him, and whispered something in his ear. My friend looked confused but kind of nodded and kept playing. After the song, he said, “Hey, so this guy here wants to say something,” and let the guy take the mic. The guy, slurring every word, asked his lady to come up on stage.
She came up, appearing nowhere near as drunk as he was, looking worried and confused. He got down on one knee, grabbed her hand, and muttered something of a proposal. She let go of his hand. He stood up.
She slapped him across the face, the sound echoing through the tiny hall. He stood bewildered as she stormed off the stage. My friend helped him off the stage and said to the crowd, “So, let’s go,” and continued a raging set.