Well, December is upon us, and as non-traditional as APW-ers are, December still means proposal month for lots and lots of you. So! In light of that, the APW team felt like this was the time to re-open the conversation on engagements and proposals. Over the last year we've had some fascinating conversations on the subject, including this amazing article on women proposing to men. But the most important conversation that we've had is demystifying the fact that, for many of us, our proposals were not a fairytale. I knew mine was coming, and had helped pick out the ring... but I still went into shock and started sobbing in an ugly way when it happened. Did I say ugly way? Yeah, it was not a happy cry. Perhaps the best Team Practical engagement story of all time is the girl who threw up all over her brand new fiance, feeling a little... overwrought. Or my mom, who told my dad she needed to think about it for a week (spoiler alert: she said yes in the end). So when Christina emailed me her un-fairytale proposal story, I was thrilled. Here is your engagement shame-blasting. It might not go like it does in the movies, and that's ok. Here is to real life, in all its gritty glory! And with that, I bring you Christina.
This past weekend, my boyfriend proposed. Hooray! Except, I couldn't say yes. I had walked into the bedroom and there was the ring. My gut reaction was just to turn around and walk back out. Instead, I sat on the bed with my back to him (and that ring winking ominously at me) and finally squeaked out that I wasn't ready. Me and the man had been having six months of tumultuous times, including a move I didn't want, to a city I don't want to be in, which was all preceded by a feeling that our relationship was off track and we were out of sync. The night dragged on with me trying to explain what I was feeling and him trying to understand. We both got mad, we both cried, we finally just went to sleep with big question marks hanging over our head. Here was the thing: I didn't say no. No was definitely not my answer, but I just couldn't bring myself to say yes.
So the proposal happened, and the next day we continued on with our weekend, relaxing, enjoying the little coastal California town we were in, and trying to act like things were cool. And, truthfully, things felt good. We had some time for quiet reflection and some time to talk things through a bit. We blew off fancy dinner plans for onion rings in a brewery and after a pint and several hours of talking, laughing, and enjoying each others company, I said yes. Officially, for sure, yes. Because this is the man I want to marry. And this is the man I want to build a life with.
To be honest, he has always been the man for me, and I knew if he proposed, I would say yes, but it had been a frustrating day in general: we sat in a lot of traffic, had a terrible, overpriced meal, the bottle of wine that we had with dinner wasn't very good (as a result, he drank most of it...). Then, throw in this quasi-proposal, in which we were both wearing bathrobes (awkward), I was cranky, he was drunk, and it all just felt wrong. I know I want to marry this man, and I consider myself fairly low maintenance, but really, I hate that things happened the way they did. That night I was worked up, and frankly, a little freaked out because I had been saving up some "big talk" fodder that I wanted to get out of the way before he asked. I had been having some preemptive cold feet which I let get the best of me (yo, marriage is scary, who knew?).
After we got back, things still felt rough to me. I was on a roller coaster of feeling happy and excited and then completely terrified and irritated. I felt a pang of frustration anytime I have to tell the proposal story (which had been edited down to exclude the 18 hours after the proposal and just jumps right to the yes), both at the way it happened and the fact that I felt it should've been different. It was hard for me to call my best friends and tell them we were engaged, because for the last 6 months, they've been hearing about how frustrated and unhappy I was.
So then the brilliant shame post popped up and I realized that I've been feeling a bit of shame over the whole thing. I'm ashamed I couldn't have that moment where I cried tears of joy and shouted YES from the rooftops. And then I'm ashamed that I feel that my proposal had to play out that way. I'm working on letting go of the shame and accepting that that's how it went, and you know what? I feel pretty brave that I didn't say yes right away. It actually gave us a reason to talk about things we had been sweeping under the proverbial rug, and after hours of talking through it (and agreeing that maybe we should see someone to help us learn how to talk to each other) and a day of hanging out doing what we love to do, the yes came easily.
I wanted to share this all with APW because I don't know that we ever hear a story other than fairytale proposals and the exuberant yes, or he pops the question, she says no, they break up. And really, how often do you hear about brides being ashamed of the start of their engagement? I'm just here to say it happens, and it's ok, and while it's not a story I tell with great pride, it's a story I feel is important to tell. Mostly, as with many things on APW, I wanted to let any other brides-to-be who might have or have had that moment other than the overwhelming exuberant "YAY!" at their proposal know that it happens. And then you move on and you're still with that person who 99.7% of the time rocks your world.
Picture: Christina says, "Taken after I said yes in the brewery while the ring was chillin' in our hotel room. It's my absolute favorite."
Hi – long time lurker, first time poster…just feel like sharing today.
I knew my FH was going to propose at some point. We’d talked about marriage, I’d picked out an antique ring, he’d ordered it in not too sneaky fashion, then we had it sized and cleaned up together. But then it sat on the bedside table in its little blue envelope, mocking me daily.
I tried to be patient, he told me he was waiting for a certain date to come around, not too worry, it would happen. But at times it did feel mean, being made to wait. I let him know how frustrating it was, sometimes seriously, sometimes jokingly. I started telling him, “it doesn’t matter when you ask because I’ve already decided that I’m going to marry you.” And I meant that completely. Our one year anniversary was coming up, certainly that would be the day…
Our anniversary was on a Thursday. We have this habit of going out on Wednesdays though. We also decided we’d go out on Friday night that week. The options were endless and I was an anxious mess. Wednesday was at our first date restaurant. A lovely night, but not THEE night. With the plan to go out on Friday, Thursday night was left for projects. I had some painting to do and he had to fix the toilet (romantic!).
After I was done painting, I checked on him. He was still working on the toilet and there was beer spilled on the carpet. He said he’d take care of it after the toilet (which I knew he would). But I got a rag and started scrubbing. And crying. I knew we weren’t doing anything special that night, but seriously? This was our anniversary? He comforted me, and we were okay – he knew what was upsetting me and let me know it wouldn’t go on much longer. The next morning, the little blue envelope was not on the bedside table.
I don’t remember much about the actual proposal. We had dinner at one of our favorite places then he asked me to go for a walk. I knew where we were going – a nearby place by the river that was special to us. It was freezing cold and we walked together very closely, holding hands. Those are the few moments I remember – walking together, really going somewhere. The ring thing happened, I’m pretty sure he said some really nice things about me too. I must have said yes at some point.
I was happy, but mostly I was glad that “the asking” was done with – we got to move on the next step – getting married! I loved that we were getting married.
I don’t have any shame about our engagement story, but I was never that thrilled with sharing it with others. I just didn’t like others looking disappointed when they heard the details – or the lack thereof. It was just not the fairytale stuff that people expect.
December 1, 2010 9:53 am
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We had the ring for a while first too. And our anniversary passed. And a trip down to where we met. And a few other big events. And each night, we came home and I was disappointed, and yes, I sulked. Not my most flattering behavior, by far.
While a friend of mine was in town visiting, he proposed…while I was looking up train times to go into the city and she was in the shower! His goal was to surprise me, and all I could think when he asked me, was “SERIOUSLY? now?!” He got down on one knee (behind the couch, no less), and said, “marry me?” And that was it.
It wasn’t a horrible proposal, but it wasn’t fairytale. I usually edit to say that he surprised me (which was his goal) when I least expected it.
To be honest, I struggled a long time with being disappointed in it. I’d anticipated that he had this grand plan, and that’s why he waited. I think it was A Conscious Bride that talks about disappointment in the proposal being OK. It was like a wakeup call for me.
But I agree with what you said — I was relieved that the “Asking” portion was over. We’ve stayed in the engaged stage for almost 2 years, but I would take that any day over the waiting and anxiety stage.
December 1, 2010 8:41 pm
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I think a little sulking is justified. :) Constantly expecting something to happen and then it not happening day after day is hard on us.
I should mention that he did have a plan that made sense to him. He wanted to wait until the day after our anniversary because he wanted us to complete a full year first. It was a cute idea – it just also happened to drive me bonkers.
I also found the pre-engaged state to be much more anxiety filled than the engagement period. Of course, we set a date right away so that left me with little to be anxious about – other than planning a wedding. :)
December 2, 2010 7:57 am
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I love this post! What a great reminder that so many other people also did not have a perfect proposal.
For me, the real moment we got engaged was when we decided together right after waking up one morning, that we wanted to get married. But he still wanted to propose with a ring a few weeks later. He tried so hard to make it romantic, surprising me after work, going to a park…but we were both acting silly and nervous. When he pulled out the ring, the first words out of my mouth were, “it’s so small”, and I spent months feeling awful about that. Because of course I love my ring and love him and should have just said yes.
I wanted there to be jumping up and down, tears of joy, excitement but there we were with me wishing I could take back those words and him laughing at me and saying it was ok. So it goes.
I’m happy to report that while we dealt with a lot of those living up to perfect stereotypical proposal/ring/wedding during our engagement, we are now happily married and I rarely think about how I “ruined” his proposal.
December 1, 2010 9:57 am
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Thanks for this. We had designed the ring “together” (really, I designed the ring since he just kept saying “you’ll be wearing it, whatever you want”) and then I gave it to him for him to propose with. And then he took 2 months, so I was kind of thinking he had grand plans or something…
His low key Christmas morning proposal was nice and us (and I messed things up by being just so happy that he finally proposed that I went straight into hugging him and he prompted me “You need to say yes”.) But there wasn’t a grand speech where he said how much I meant to him and there are so many cool proposals I thought up myself while I was waiting and our friends’ proposals seemed, just, more unique and thought out and I felt… a little gypped because of all this pressure to have an AWESOME OMG !1!!!1 engagement proposal.
So thanks for all the stories. I rather enjoyed being engaged (except when I was wedding planning) and am enjoying being married. That’s what counts in the end!
(Also, I was happy, but I swear the first female friend I called was WAY more excited than I was, which was kind of weird.)
December 1, 2010 10:02 am
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(Also, I was happy, but I swear the first female friend I called was WAY more excited than I was, which was kind of weird.)
Yes this absolutely. My sister screamed for what felt like 2 minutes. I was just happy but not excited.
March 11, 2011 3:02 am
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Yes! This made my day. I’m six months into an engagement and five months away from the weddding. Completely in limbo land – not single, not married. APW has been my saving grace since I found it last week, letting me see that “cold-feet” is okay. Loved “yo marriage is scary, who knew?” That’s exactly how I felt.
My engagement was super romantic, with so much planning and thoughtfulness going into a suprise trip to Tuscany. I mean, really? Amazing. It had all the ingredients for the perfect fairy tale engagement… except me… The moment he surprised me at the airport and I found out where we were going I knew the proposal would come sometime on the trip. I was ecstatic, totally happy and probably the most joyful person ever to go through airport security. But once the excitment passed I started to feel the OMGs come over me. My fiance from day one was very serious, and I knew he wanted to marry me from early on in the relationship. He was ready and willing as soon as I was ready. I felt overwhelmed by his certainty, because I was so uncertain and three steps behind him. It felt like I didn’t have a choice to say no or leave the relationship, it was just yes now or yes later. (I did work through all that eventually, and knew it was “yes later” :) All these scary questions came up during the flight, like, am I thinking I’m ready for marriage just to please him or am I really ready myself? Is this too fast? How do I know for sure that this is exactly what I want? And the list goes on and on.
His proposal was romantic, but it was at the end of our very first day in Italy we were totally jet lagged and just about to fall asleep after a long long day. He surprised me with the ring as we were getting ready for bed. A beautiful, exciting but exhausting day. I was surprised and scared because I didn’t feel the earth move, or fireworks, or whatever it was I was expecting. But I did know that my whole heart wanted to say yes, so I trusted myself and that’s what I said. Then the most wonderful and unexpected part was that we had a whole ten days, just the two of us, to bask in the engagement in a beautiful country, with good food and great wine. It felt like us, and I was happy in my own way. Not jumping up and down screaming excited, but it was totally me and I was totally content with that.
December 1, 2010 10:03 am
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Thank you for your story Christina, and this is (obviously!) something it seems we all have the need to talk about. I also really don’t like the “so how did he propose!” requests, but they have declined rapidly now that we are married! Last winter my husband made a nice dinner, had some sweet music on, and there in the kitchen with our dog by our side, he did not propose – he asked me if we could start talking about getting married in the summer. There was his grandmother’s beautiful ring (which he’d hidden in the house for six months), but what I remember most about that night is being so happy, and sitting down together, and talking it out. What it would mean to us, what we thought would change with getting married, the whole deal. We also took a day before telling anyone (especially difficult when we went to a friend’s house that night), but that made it our secret, even for that short period of time. A part of me wishes I’d kept that secret for longer, because the rest of the engagement was a whirlwind of planning and pressure from my family (“If you’re getting married this summer, you need to book ______ NOW or else there will be no one left!!”), who wanted many things at the wedding that neither of us did. Engagements are apparently not as fun as we are told they will be, but the good news is, being married has been awesome so far!
December 1, 2010 10:15 am
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I was hungover when my husband proposed. He’d gone all out with a surprise trip to a nice bed-and-breakfast and planned to propose at a romantic dinner. Instead, I had 3 glasses of wine at the social hour, we went out with another couple and I proceeded to get really drunk (maybe I was nervous because I knew he was up to something). We stumbled home and I couldn’t stay awake in the jacuzzi. I was up all night and sick. In the morning, still in bed, he tried to slip the ring on my finger and it didn’t fit.
I leave most of these details out when telling people how it happened.
December 1, 2010 10:15 am
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Ha! I love it!
December 1, 2010 4:37 pm
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What an awesome post, and that picture put a huge grin on my face the moment I saw it, because the smiles on your faces are infectious.
Reading the previous comments I share a lot of the same feelings that many readers spoke about; expectation, leading to over processing during the moment and then the let down because you kinda missed it happening.
So the unedited version:
My FH is not an expressive type at all, so I ws looking forward to the proposal (read I demanded this like a spoiled child) with a huge gushy speech where he would pour his heart out. I had also asked for a puppy and not an engagement ring.
I returned from a work trip to Spain and was told there was a surprise, I closed my eyes and felt a icy cold sensation on my face and automatically thought he was pulling a prank on me (yeah we regularly pull sh*t on each other, keeps us nimble), but opened my eyes to a cute squirmy, licky puppy…and then proceeded to freak out, repeatedly saying, “there’s a puppy here, OMG, there’s a puppy!” and looking at him waiting for him to propose. Finally, he barked at me to read the tag, where he had “will you marry me” engraved on the tag.
Cue the part I’m ashamed off, I then had to twist his arm to actually ask me, because in my head I was still waiting for the mushy speech, and in his head, the tag said everything that was needed. I said yes, but I continued to be dissapointed that there was no outpouring of emotion.
I’ve figured him out a lot more now (long engagement, going on 2 years…) and know that he basically becomes super awkward in situations that feel contrived or overly emotional and retreats. I actually was even more obnoxious and asked for a Do over.
I’ve gotten over the whole thing (and myself!) and now see how ridiculous I was, because I had crafted this scenario in my head, and I’m learning fast that the moment I do that, the more chances there are that I will distance myself from what’s actually going on, and end up with a hollow sense of dissapointment later. It’s a lesson I’m keeping at the forefront when planning our wedding.
Loving these stories :)
December 1, 2010 10:26 am
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I love that he got you a puppy (and you requested one). We were in Germany before we got engaged on vacay….and I suggested he buy me a BMW to drive on the autobahn (and then have shipped home) instead of a ring….needless to say that didn’t happen. But a puppy! Oh, how freakin’g cute…and you have the tag forever! LOVE IT!
December 1, 2010 11:59 am
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I think that the Proposal and being Engaged are slowly becoming distinct events in our modern culture. I never had a Proposal (and I am very happy about that fact), we just became Engaged one day and it was wonderful. It’s a bit confusing when I talk to women who are like “yeah, we are getting married, thinking about June of 2011….but we’re not engaged yet!” and I’m kinda like, yes you are engaged. You just haven’t gotten the Proposal. Which kind of then makes me angry because these strong, independent, modern women are left completely dependent on whenever the guy wants to drop down on one knee and all that. All I am saying is that you can totally be Engaged without a Proposal – and it can still be romantic and fantastic!
December 1, 2010 10:27 am
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Haha, I just wrote below about how I didn’t realize I was engaged because there was no proposal until the end of our engagement. Yep, I was too stuck in my own narrow definition of what I thought my engagement experience would look like that I didn’t allow myself to really consider myself engaged. Or use the word “fiancé.” Oh well, you live and learn…. :)
December 1, 2010 11:34 am
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I think that’s dead right. I hadn’t realised it was possible for a couple to have decided to get married, but not be engaged. And then when I realised in fact couples are in this position, I thought, well I guess that’s to avoid having people constantly nag them to plan a wedding when they not ready to sort out the practicalities yet even though they’re agreed on getting married in principle. It hadn’t occured to me that people are waiting for their boyfriends to propose even though the fact that marriage is definitely going to happen some time is a done deal. Thank goodness my other half didn’t try that one on me.
I don’t mean to say it’s daft. OK, I do mean to say it’s daft, I _don’t_ mean to say any given people are daft — quite the reverse! I’m so glad Christina and everyone shared their stories of nonfairytale proposals. Thank heavens for the shame blaster!
I asked him while I was putting his water bottle back in his rucksack for him. You know when you’re too lazy to take your rucksack off to get something out, so you turn around and allow a friend to rummage around, during which time you have to hold still and (this is the important bit) can’t run away without everything falling out of your bag? That’s the time to ask someone to make a decision, I feel. No, I don’t really feel it counts as a legit proposal story, except here.
December 1, 2010 12:14 pm
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I think the official (Facebook approved!) title of “engaged” is commonly used to define the time you’re planning a wedding, not as the time you’re planning to be married. Husband and I were intending to be married to each other for about three years, but only considered ourselves engaged for 11 months. The eleven months between us purchasing a ring and getting married. It isn’t that we weren’t ‘engaged to be wed’ or ‘betrothed’, we just weren’t sharing those plans with the world or planning the wedding. I wasn’t the bride yet and he wasn’t the groom.
After the emotional rollercoaster that was those 11 months, I wish we’d cut it down to 5. Being engaged is overrrated.
December 2, 2010 7:53 am
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Haha! I totally get this wierd sort-of limbo feeling! I’m Engaged, I Proposed, but we haven’t gotten a ring yet or announced it to the world so I really feel slightly inauthentic when I refer to him as my “fiance.” We’ve told my parents, and select friends (mostly by dropping hints to said friends) but we don’t want to make any formal announcements, buy a ring or start wedding planning until after we have had a chance to for me to meet his parents and break the news to them. They live overseas, so it’s a little more complicated and it’s probably going to be spring before we make it there.
So yeah, it does feel odd to be in this sort of limbo.
December 1, 2010 12:20 pm
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Yes! We decided together as adults– no Proposal, no ring. Ladies I’ve talked to have been like, “NO WAY would I get married without a ring.” I explain that he got us a house, a new car, and bought me a kayak, and we talked about the pros and cons of marriage and decided that the pros outweighed the cons. They usually become silent at that point. Must take a lot of thinking when you realize that you’ve walked through a whole life thinking that something should go a certain way and it doesn’t actually have to be that way.
I can’t say that we haven’t fallen for some of the socially accepted stuff. My partner has said that we aren’t technically engaged (long after the deposit was paid on our venue and photographer, etc) because he hadn’t Proposed. That kind of hurt my feelings.
Because he didn’t Propose, every once in a whole I get very insecure about whether he really wants to be married to me. I freak out (usually in the middle of the night after a day when we had a hard time relating) and ask if he really, really wants to be with me. He tells me that he wants to be my husband and wants me to be his wife, and wants to raise children with me and grow old with me.
And it’s still not perfect: I really want to have children and I want my partner to be their father. I have made some compromises that I don’t want to go into on a public forum, but I will say that they are very personal and still hurt to think about.
December 2, 2010 7:40 am
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Christina, awesome story! And such a wonderful and necessary post. (That picture just kills me!)
What brewery? (I’m a beer nerd…)
We’re in the “we-decided-together-and-are-working-toward-wedding” phase, have the rings, and a few key people know. He finds it important to propose so most people don’t know and won’t know until after, when we’ll both wear our rings.
Honestly? I don’t really look forward to everyone knowing. I really like that right now it’s private and cozy and we get to plan without society tearing things down or wanting to get involved. I want to have things planned before we announce. But I also don’t want to take it away from other people in our families.
December 1, 2010 10:34 am
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this was so refreshing and liberating to read. i’ve been recasting my own engagement story as a fairytale for over a year now, emphasizing the romantic location and the element of surprise and the ring, all the while never telling anybody that as it was happening i was completely terrified. because, like christina, although i’d known for years that we’d probably get married, there were still big conversations we hadn’t had. we have religious differences so big that i couldn’t even picture what our wedding would look like or whether my family would accept it. i felt upset that he’d decided to propose before talking to me about these things and without approaching me father. and, of course, i felt deep shame over that and over the fact that i didn’t tell anybody about our engagement for at least a week. APW has long acknowledged the engagement period rarely feels the way it looks in movies and magazines; i’m glad to see that proposals are the same way.
December 1, 2010 10:43 am
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This is a really interesting story, and even though I’ve been reading APW for a while, it’s the first one that has spurred me to actually reply. Thank you for sharing it.
I had a pretty non-proposal proposal as well. The Mister had been away visiting his family on the other side of the state for the weekend, and he got back later in the evening on Sunday. We got into bed and were burrowing down for sleep, when he told me he’d been thinking in the car and decided that he thought he would like it if I married him. I told him I thought I would like it, too. That was it. For some people, that’s the start of a conversation about whether and when they should get married at some point in the future. For us, it was the actual “proposal,” and two days later, we started planning a wedding.
In the interim, though, there were some tough conversations. Well, tough for me, anyway. He’s pretty easygoing and accommodating. When I woke up the next morning, I was excited and happy about knowing that he wanted to marry me, but I had some serious doubts about going through with it. Not because I didn’t love him or wasn’t ready. We’d been living together for a couple of years, had dated for a year before that, and were friends for eight years before starting a relationship. I know this man, I love this man, we were pretty well acting married anyway, might as well just sign that piece of paper. But I had decided for myself long before we were ever even thinking about marriage that I didn’t want to marry until it was legal for all of my friends and family to do so as well. And after last year’s debacle in my home state, it looks like marriage equality is a long way off. I was also concerned about my name, financial dependence (he makes twice what I do), having kids or not, and all sorts of other things about my identity as a woman and my independence.
We talked about all of this, and more, and we worked it out before deciding to tell anyone about the engagement. And then we ran off and got officially hitched at City Hall a month later because decided we just wanted to BE MARRIED without all the pressure that comes with the process (even though we are still having a ceremony and reception with family and friends this January). But there was no engagement ring, no “story,” and it wasn’t quite what people imagine a proposal to be.
December 1, 2010 10:55 am
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I’ve been following this blog since our engagement last summer (read: lurking) and this post has hit home more than any other. So much so I’m finding it hard to boil things down to a short comment.
My future husband proposed to me while we were on a sunset sail boat ride with chamapgne and a boat full of passengers as witnesses. Sounds dreamy right? I was mortified. And initially panicked and started telling him not do it. Thankfully he was nervous and that part of things got lost in translation (the clapping and flashing of photos from on-lookers helped with that the general feeling of chaos and confusion. ack!) I did say yes. Though I have never expressed this to my partner, because it meant a lot to him to be able to surprise me and make such a romantic gesture, but I always wish that he had done it differently. I’m a much more private person and would rather have had the no-fuss private moment in my stained pj’s with our dog curled up between us on the couch. He also proposed with a “fake” ring that he had picked out a few days earlier when we thought we’d be planning a shot-gun wedding. ahem….turns out it was a false alarm. But evidently that experience made it very clear to him that this is what he wanted.
Anyway, I shared so many of the experiences and feelings that have been talked about: the proposal, wishing it had been different, doubts about future husbands ability to follow through, dealing with reactions from family and friends, feeling uncomfortable telling people about our engagement. (SO UNCOMFORTABLE), future husband feeling bad and not understanding why I felt uncomfortable, the “fake” ring he asked with, picking out the “real” ring, and just generally not feeling like I thought I “should” or would feel about this whole thing.
Oh and the questions! “How’s the planning?” “How did it happen?” “How did you meet?” and on and on… I know people are excited for me and trying to show their support, but I never expected to feel so uncomfortable having to explain myself or us or any of this.
All I can say is that I’m so thankful to have found APW. Its been so wonderful to hear other women (and men) talking so candidly about everything involved with this huge transition. And such a relief to own those feelings and know that there’s nothing “wrong” with me for having felt that way! Thank you all!
December 1, 2010 11:22 am
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I couldn’t agree more. APW rocks for talking about all the stuff that doesn’t get said, written about, spoken of, done, or did. And I agree with the questions….ugh….I’m going to try my hardest not to ask them next time I meet an engaged woman….I even get embarrassed sharing my own engagement news, I actually don’t like the attention.
December 1, 2010 11:55 am
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“Though I have never expressed this to my partner, because it meant a lot to him to be able to surprise me and make such a romantic gesture, but I always wish that he had done it differently. I’m a much more private person and would rather have had the no-fuss private moment in my stained pj’s with our dog curled up between us on the couch.”
I so feel you on this one. And the retelling just makes the private stuff public over and over again… Ugh.
December 1, 2010 5:36 pm
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I feel you on this. Talking about our engagement – actually anything about our relationship – makes me really self-concious. I don’t know if it’s fear of not meeting people’s expectations or not feeling the “right” way about everything or what, but I hate it. I especially hate other people having opinions about it, even if they’re all positive. I always want to shout “NO! This is mine and his and you don’t get to think about it or imagine it or be happy or sad or envious or impressed about it!!”
When it comes down to it that decision to get married, however it was made, whenever it happened is a BIG EFFING DEAL and it is BIG LIFE ALTERING SH*T to you and your partner. To every other person it’s an amusing anecdote. That disparity is guaranteed to make us feel weird so we should probably acknowledge that. Shame-blast it.
December 2, 2010 8:06 am
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I always say, we got engaged gradually!
Our official engagement “moment” was simply a discussion over dinner at a cute place, when we both realized we were on the same page and ready to get engaged. There was no official moment, no popping of any questions, and for about three months, no ring (until we visited his family and he gave me a family ring with my birthstone in it).
It was a lot like the rest of our relationship — very natural, sweet, but not a lot of fussing!
December 1, 2010 11:24 am
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Yes! We got engaged gradually too, only I didn’t realize it until after the fact. :)
December 1, 2010 11:39 am
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I have enjoyed reading so many honest engagement stories and now realize these type of stories are probably more normal than what we all think is How Proposals Are Supposed To Go.
For us, my now-husband was ready to commit to spend his life with me almost a year before I was ready. I knew this and told him multiple times that he was not allowed to propose until I told him I was also ready. So, when I was (finally!) ready to go to the next stage (after some extremely helpful meetings with an awesome marital counselor for our “pre-engagement counseling”), I told him that I was ready (on the way to get Thai takeout while standing at an intersection waiting for the “walk” sign.) So we started planning the wedding. He later said that he had considered us engaged at this point; I did not because I was too stuck in the traditional narrative. We talked about rings and he ordered a ring to be made for me. We began making plans. He even told me when he picked up the ring, but no proposal came. So I waited and we kept planning.
On the Wednesday before our Saturday wedding (yes, you read that right), he officially proposed. It was an amazing, fun proposal (with friends, walkie-talkies, and a secret ready signal from him!) BUT its atypical, chronologically challenged timing didn’t fit my idea of the “right” process of marking the transition from dating to engagement to marriage and I had a hard time with that. If I had it to do over again with what I have learned from that process and since then from the APW community, I would have taken ownership of our actual experience and tried to enjoyed it for what it was in reality. You live and learn, I guess. Though one unexpectedly nice result of the official proposal being only days before the wedding was that it felt like a symbol of the end of wedding planning craziness and the beginning of the journey of marriage, which was kind of fabulous.
December 1, 2010 11:26 am
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Oh my gosh, you’re story made me tear up. How incredibly romantic to propose right before the wedding. I LOVE IT! I’d actually like to plan a return proposal for my man…this gave me a good idea.
December 1, 2010 11:52 am
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I’m so glad our story sparked your idea! Would love to hear how it goes… :)
December 1, 2010 12:34 pm
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LOVE this story. Go you and your man for just embracing all of it. And I concurry….you not saying yes right away, succumbing to the pressure of the fairytale-ness, GO YOU! You got to say what you wanted, talk about something you both need to fix, and in the end, had the best day (it sounds like) being you, a WE, a couple. I hope that the engagement period for both of you is an amazing time for growth and recommittment….and maybe some wedding/party planning. But most important…focus on what you’re good at while you fix it all….you’re together for a reason and you’re enagaged for a reason.
On a personal note….our proposal itself was fairytale, but leading up to it wasn’t. For 3 years I tortured my poor man with wishy-washy messages….year 1 was honeymoon phase where I talked about marriage (what was love and lust) like it was my job, year 2 it sank in he was it and i was scared b/c my divorced parents, life, unknowns, etc, year 3 he was ready (he was probably ready in year 2 but I couldn’t hear him) and I was still scared….and FINALLY only a couple of months ago I got ready…on my 27th birthday, I proclaimed to him I was ready. He had gotten fed up at months before and just asked me to tell him when I was ready b/c he couldn’t figure it out. So he seized the moment and a week after turning 27 (which my brain somehow deemed an approriate age to get engaged), he proposed….I even said in the car ride to after dinner drinks “I’m ready. I wouldnt’ have been ready months before, but I’m ready now”….having absolutely NO idea what was about to happen. honestly. NO idea what was happening. And I’m glad I waited to be ready because when I said YES! (I actually said, “wait, are you SERIOUSLY asking me to MARRY you?”) I said YES with my whole soul….my heart and soul always knew, my brain just needed to catch up.
So everyone goes through this, I think. Marriage is a big f-ing committment and its forever. Love to all of you who didn’t have a fairytale engagement moment….life isn’t an freakin’ disney fairytale….there are years ahead of you for those to happen and fall into place. :)
December 1, 2010 11:50 am
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YES. It took my brain AGES to catch up too! I think that is why I kept telling him I wasn’t ready until I had dealt with all my fears. (Which basically meant coming to terms with the fact that there are always unknowns in life and then making the intentional decision to trust in our love and not live in fear of the “what ifs.”) But since he waited months after the point when I said I was ready (which was the very day I worked through this when it was still very new, like a baby taking those first wobbly steps…), by the time he actually proposed months later (right before the wedding), it was a deep-in-my-bones and sureness in my soul sense of being ready. And I am thankful for that. :)
December 1, 2010 12:42 pm
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oh my gosh, this: “Which basically meant coming to terms with the fact that there are always unknowns in life and then making the intentional decision to trust in our love and not live in fear of the “what ifs.””
Yes. That. Exactly that. I’m doing this right now, and it is HARD.
Being the nerd that I am, I’m comparing this to the moment in the last Harry Potter book when Harry finally just decides to ignore the unknowns and TRUST Dumbledore.
December 1, 2010 1:50 pm
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Good luck working through it. It IS hard. But important. Hang in there and the other side will be so worth it….
December 1, 2010 7:11 pm
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HUGE thumbs-up for Harry Potter nerdiness! Love it. :D
January 20, 2011 11:47 pm
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so much love for this post. while I’m not yet engaged I know the feeling of shame when you’ve been complaining about your relationship woes for so long and then have some sort of cathartic event and your friends can’t understand how the hell everything is so peachy all of a sudden. I think that a lot of people confuse not having learned how to communicate perfectly with not being perfect for eachother. both parties just have to be willing to learn. congrats.
December 1, 2010 12:03 pm
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I have one un-fairytale proposal and one psuedo un-fairytale proposal:
1. On my 25th birthday, Zack, his mom, my siter and her husband and son went out for dinner. It was my first paycheck from my new job (after being SERIOUSLY broke), and I was expecting nothing, gift wise. So, we are all sitting down to dinner and he’s holding my hand under the table and slips a ring into my hand. My face turne white, then red – I thought he was propsing…in front of our families…I wa absolutely mortified. So I kept it under the table and didn’t say anything, and Zack was soooo upset because he thought I didn’t like my present. I was really only upset that (I thought) he was displaying a very private moment to the world. AND everyone was in on it. Turns out it was just an “I love you!” ring, and I wear it every day.
2. Zack officially proposed to me in the car at a Whole Foods parking lot at 7:30am. No ring (still no ring, probably won’t get a ring until we get our wedding bands), nothing special, just blurted it out. I was like “REALLY? ”
I don’t put out there that we are engaged (though pretty much everyone knows) because I don’t want to deal with everyone asking about my ring or the story and “OMGWEDDING!” because on some level I am embarrassed that there isn’t a romantic story or a sparkly ring to show off. But, really, that doesn’t matter at all, and I know I shouldn’t be ashamed. I get to marry the most awesome, wonderful, handsome man on the planet….and THAT is shout from the rooftops worthy.
(I think I made myself kind of sound like a brat here…hmmm…)
December 1, 2010 12:04 pm
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I love this honest post & the honest comments about proposals. This is certainly not the stuff you read about in Martha Stewart Weddings!
Our proposal was fairly romantic & perfect but I guess I’m the product of watching too many romantic comedies so I wondered if we’d fallen short. Every, every proposal story seems to include tears & neither of us cried. Then there’s the fact that we argued over how to get the ring on my finger. Was I supposed to open the ring box? Was he? Should he put the ring on my finger or should I do that? Now I don’t even remember how it played out. In the end, it was very us & just right. Now I’m learning every proposal is as unique as each couple which I love.
December 1, 2010 12:15 pm
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Hi APW!
So engagement stories — I love this! Ours was pretty great (on the rooftop of our NYC apt). But the funny part is how I almost ruined the entire thing that day.
We had been together for 9 years and I never thought he would get it together to ask. So it’s labor day weekend. I get home from work early and decide to clean up the house. As I’m sorting through a pile of two year old magazines, out drop several brochures and engagement ring buying guide.
I honestly thought nothing of it. I asked him where they came from and he turned beet red, was very confused and mumbled something about his mother forcing him to stop at Tiffanys “just to look” when she was in town a few years ago.
Knowing his mother, that’s exactly the thing she would have done. She had been hard-core pressing us for years. I looked at the stack said “Well that’s dumb. Why would she take you there?” and promptly threw them in the trash.
Worst timing ever. He had the ring in his pocket and little did I know he was going to ask that afternoon. He almost didn’t because he was so embarrassed and confused. But I totally had ignored the whole incident and went back to cleaning.
Two hours later we were engaged. The funny thing was, those really were years-old brochures from his mother and I just happened to unearth them at the wrong time.
And thank god he asked. Because being married to him is really the greatest.
December 1, 2010 12:20 pm
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Perfect proposals my ass.
Much too early on in our relationship, I first half-proposed to my husband and got shot down. ‘One day… Not yet.’
Then, when talk of lives lived together had been aired for some time, he planned a romantic getaway that was meant to be a proposal, but forgot to bring the ring, so didn’t ask. I had no idea, because it was also his birthday, which I thought was the whole point of the trip.
Cut to FOUR MONTHS later. It’s between Christmas and New Year, can’t remember exactly when. I’m pissed and envious as hell cause I just spent Christmas working night shifts, while he’s just got back from a lovely time with his family. I’m stressed as hell cause the UK Home Office has just issued new immigration rules which essentially mean I’ll have to leave the country within the next year unless a miracle happens. In my infinite tired & irritable wisdom, I basically pick a fight with him in which I accuse him of not really loving me enough, or being committed enough to care about our future together, and possibly also rant about opportunities I gave up to stay in the UK with him, and all for nothing. He then (only slightly ragefully, to his credit), pulls a small box out of his backpack, and thrusts it at me, saying essentially (I forget exactly, I didn’t know what was coming at me), of course I want to be with you, you stupid cow, I was just waiting for the right moment to ask, but fine, have it now, will you bloody well just marry me. I open the box, and in it is an exquisite ring.
I’ve never been so effectively silenced, before or since.
I cried A LOT that night, and didn’t quite say yes. Angry he didn’t propose before. Guilty that I’d forced him into marrying me for visa purposes. (Clearly not, since he’d had the ring about 6 months, and had been working on the design for months before that, long before any Home Office mess had happened, but I was not especially logical that night.) ASHAMED of how the whole thing had panned out. He tried to take the proposal back so he could ‘ask me properly’ later that week, and we eventually went to bed exhausted, ring still in box. The next morning though, I decided I didn’t need a pretty proposal, life was messy, marriage would sometimes would be really messy, and the ring was so f*cking beautiful, I wanted to wear it NOW, and had I lost my mind, I’d known I wanted to grow old with this man since about two weeks into our relationship, so OF COURSE I’LL MARRY YOU.
Suffice to say we’re living our happy ending. (Even though that engagement ring was then lost a couple months later, and the one I wear is a replica I subsequently bought, because I so loved his design. But it clearly had bad juju, that original ring.) But the story of our proposal was heavily edited for general consumption. Shame is hard to shake sometimes.
December 1, 2010 12:25 pm
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That is, I think, the first story today that made me tear up. I love your voice.
December 1, 2010 12:44 pm
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hey, hey! me too! it wasn’t just the health insurance, it was also because he’s Scottish and I knew he might get a job back in the UK, and I wanted us to be good and married before that happened.
We’re married. He got a job back in the UK. He’s there, and I am here….. waiting…..for my visa…… it has been months, and there is no one who can tell me wtf is going on. it is driving me crazy.
Really nothing is more romantic than waiting for government bureaucracies to allow you to be with the one you love, don’t you think? grrrrrrrrrrrrr.
December 1, 2010 5:16 pm
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Lauren MC, I know! Thankfully we are together right now, but we are also waiting on a government to decide our right to live in the same country too. Does quite a number on your emotions to be so out of control of it all….ugh.
December 1, 2010 7:15 pm
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We are, too. Except we’re not waiting, I overstayed my visa in his country to be with him & my status has been “irregular” for 4 of the 5 years we’ve been together. Now that we’re married (honestly: in part to aid immigration in various different countries, since we had already promised to be together forever without the jewelry), we’re working on getting him permission for legal permanent residence in my country & I can finally apply to be legal here. I really don’t like being illegal, but before we were married I didn’t have any other options for living in the same place as him.
Most people think that marriage = instant legal status anywhere, but as you guys know, it’s SO much more complicated than that (like, $4000 and a year’s wait more complicated). I very much believe that if you can prove that it’s a real marriage (not just for papers) you should be granted immediate residency. It’s not really ok for governments to separate families, no matter how recently-formed they may be!
Glad it’s worked out for you already, Lauren & agirl. We’re on our way, too (just got phase 1 of his approved & must wait 40 days to see if mine comes through). Jenny, I think you’ve nailed it with the not being in control! Good luck!
January 27, 2011 5:22 am
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“I feel pretty brave that I didn’t say yes right away.”
You feel brave because you ARE brave. So good! Your story totally indicates that you understood the magnitude of your decision in context of your relationship, weighed it, and said yes anyway…no reason to feel embarrassed when announcing it to your friends. You obviously do, in fact, have your head screwed on straight.
Congrats!1
December 1, 2010 12:37 pm
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My now husband proposed to me at a rave, when we both may or may not have been under the influence of mind-altering substances. Fairytale it was not, but full of emotion and honesty it definitely was. And it worked for us. The hard part was when family and some of our more conservative friends asked about the proposal.
December 1, 2010 12:51 pm
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Something very similar happened to me and my husband. He came home from a war zone and proposed. I wasn’t ready, and I didn’t feel like I could say no (I mean, he was going back to A WAR ZONE), but I didn’t feel like I should say yes, and I panicked and got upset about a little detail (the fact that he wanted to go look at diamonds together, when I don’t like diamonds, and how could he possibly love me and KNOW me if he didn’t know that little detail). He even did it the way I wanted – quietly, with no fanfare, no fancy dinner, no ring, just a lovely, sweet discussion about how much I mean to him and how he couldn’t imagine spending the rest of his life without me.We got in a terrible fight, I walked around the block about ten zillion times and called my mother, crying. She reminded me that I had been talking about marrying him for years already, and that I had already, in talking about it and planning for it, already said yes, in my mind and in my heart, just not traditionally. We made up, decided to shelve the ring shopping until he was home for good, and agreed that we wouldn’t even start planning a wedding until it felt right for both of us. And now we’re married (which is a whole other dramatic, crazy story), and in a good place in our relationship, so it all worked out in the end. Even so, I still feel guilty about ruining my husband’s sweet, thoughtful proposal, for dictating the terms of how he did it and essentially “ruining” his proposal.
December 1, 2010 1:14 pm
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A few people have mentioned their guilt about “ruining” their partner’s proposal but it’s a bit hard to get it right when you have to respond then and there (usually!) to something they get to plan and initiate. I’m usually the planner in our relationship so it was a little hard to let The Boy have free rein over something this big!! We’d been talking about getting engaged for ages and I kind of guessed it was coming so had to bite my tongue so as not to “ruin” his proposal (I knew I’d never live it down if I did because I totally ruined his asking me out in the first place which was a big deal for him!). Sorry, I know I’m rambling – just a thought that given the magnitude of the decision and the frequent lack of time to plan or talk it through, maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves for responding slightly differently from how we “should”! :)
December 1, 2010 3:38 pm
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As with so many things wedding related, generally the proposal is thought of as something for the woman, right? As with so many things I’m realizing now that I’m officially engaged and planning a wedding, my fiance has real feelings about the way these things reflect on him. He put an enormous amount of energy into his proposal, and it’s a great story, and all our friends are impressed. Was it really for me, was it really what mattered to me…I feel bad saying it, but no, not really. It was a grand, public surprise and he got down on one knee and formally asked. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the tradition of being asked, period (we had already discussed it and decided that we knew we wanted to get married, which felt nice and egalitarian to me), I didn’t want to be so surprised since it rendered me utterly incapable of feeling anything, and because it was so public it was hard for what he said to feel intimate. I hear what Meg and so many people are saying that this is an opportunity to communicate, but how can I complain about something that I know was from his heart? The conclusion I’m coming to is that the proposal was for him, really, not for me. And that’s ok, because he needed it much more than I did. I’m just happy to be officially able to tell people we’re getting married and to be moving forward.
December 1, 2010 2:00 pm
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Thank you for sharing this, Christina. Like any other girl who’s planned their weddings since grade school (I did after attending my aunt’s fairy-tale like wedding), getting the un-fairytale proposal could be saw depressing. My husband and I were going out for a few years already and we were talking about getting married. In the midst of a normal dinner at home, my husband raised the question again and well, I was expecting a ring at least…Still and all, what followed after getting married is the fairy tale. Sometimes, we all get to a shaky start but when we get going, the fun starts happening. ;)
December 1, 2010 2:03 pm
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Thanks for this post Christina. Only hearing the fairytale proposals has made me feel shame about mine, but I’ve always been suspicious that there had to be other un-fairytale stories out there.
My FH and I had been talking about marriage for about a year. This time consisted of a lot of arguments over why I wasn’t ready. (Only once did I include this detail in the proposal story because I found out afterward that FH feels ashamed that I had “turned him down” the first time). I eventually decided that I was ready, we picked a ring out together, and he managed to make the purchase in secret so I didn’t know for sure. We were both busy with school/work and spent a lot of time apart that summer, so when fall rolled around I had a feeling the proposal was coming. It was a Saturday afternoon and we decided to have a quick tussle between the sheets before going out. He followed me to the bedroom, undid my shorts from behind, and when I turned around he was on his knee with the little box. So I’m standing there with my ugliest brown plaid grandpa golf shorts down around my ankles and I instantly start crying from disappointment. I’m pretty sure I said “you’re doing this now?” That must have been horrible for him to hear. But all I could think about was how I certainly couldn’t tell my parents this story, and probably no one else either. I had never imagined some glorious proposal, but I was let down anyway. I am ashamed that this was how I reacted, especially since I was so excited to be making this commitment with him. FH is also embarrassed about how it happened and says he doesn’t know why he picked that moment other than he had been carrying the ring around all morning and was in some sort of black out from nerves (which I find damn romantic). This happened over a year ago and now we are able to joke about it some. I have realized that this proposal story highlights some of my imperfections pretty clearly, which probably adds to the shame that comes with repeating it to others. I think eventually we’ll be able to tell close friends because it is actually pretty funny, but certain audiences will always get the edited version.
December 1, 2010 2:11 pm
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I was one of those almost-pukers… glad to hear (again) that there’s a club.
And this:
“I was on a roller coaster of feeling happy and excited and then completely terrified and irritated.” … Just speaking from my own experience, this doesn’t end with the wedding. I mean, it changes–maybe it’s more like a kiddie coaster most of the time– but it’s still there. For me, anyways. I think you have to decide every day that you want to be married to someone. And somedays that decision is easier than others.
December 1, 2010 2:27 pm
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First time poster – been lurking for a few months but felt like sharing our less-than-fairytale proposal story.
Since we got together, things have not been easy with my folks, mainly my Mum. We got together in France where we were both working, and this was all fine until he and I ended up coming home early, to the UK, him living with my folks…I kinda didn’t ask, just assumed this was OK. Big mistake, I’ve apologised since. But ever since, Mum’s never seen eye to eye with him and has on occasion said some really hurtful things. Anyway, fast forward to last June, we’ve moved into a flat together, got past the 1 year mark, had talked lots about getting married at some point, and he is looking for work. And according to my Mum not doing enough, so that was stressing us all out, her nagging at me every time we spoke. I’ve come to understand since that she doesn’t mean to hurt me and this is just how she is. But anyway I’d been on the phone to yet more negative comments about him which she always passed through me and never spoke to him directly and got off the phone feeling drained and upset. He could tell, and came and sat next to me on the foot of the bed, hugging me. I told him what she’d said, and had a long discussion about everything she’d been nagging about. Which led into talking about the future, things will get better etc. And out of nowhere, he got up and knelt at the end of the bed in front of me, said he loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me (etc etc I sadly don’t remember the exact words probably because I was in shock!) and I threw myself on him and said YES! So far so good.
My Mum’s reaction, however when we went round to tell them, was that she didn’t feel she could say congratulations because (basically) he had no job and wasn’t ‘doing enough’.. HELLO… recession + no jobs + he was applying to LOTS + anyway couldn’t you even pretend to be happy for me? And apparently it was a bombshell – well yeah maybe but its GOOD news, not like we said we were running off to get married the next day or anything, to us it was simply a promise of commitment, this man wants to marry me and I want to marry him, I have found my future husband, how is this not a good thing?!? My Dad, bless him, said well as long as your happy, that’s all he wanted. So after the two opposite reactions I was all teary, hugged my Dad and left.
It has got better since, and Mum’s apologised, but it was not easy telling people, like my colleagues – they’re all squealing away and beaming and in my head I’m thinking, why could my Mum not even show a fraction of this? And compared to his family’s reaction (I could hear his Gran on the phone from half way across the room) it was pretty depressing.
Am realising that ‘proposal reactions’ could well be a whole other post. But, I do love that it wasn’t fairytale though, the actual proposal, I love that I was at a real low point and he just spontaneously decided that ‘why not now’ he’d do it. And (corniness alert) I am happy no matter what Mum thinks, cos I have the absolute best guy I could imagine, and I know we’ll have a long happy marriage. So, next issue is bringing up wedding talk and hoping it doesn’t spark her off again (he’s working now though so should help matters!)
Sorry for long post I needed to get all that out. Loving APW bigtime, you guys rock.
December 1, 2010 2:33 pm
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My proposal was originally one I was embarrassed to talk about to my friends and family when I started to “make the calls”.
It was a Sunday and we had been out of bed for about an hour, but were still in our PJs (as in he was in boxers and I looked a mess) At the time we were thinking about buying a house and were talking about how we would decorate it when I blurted out “You know you should just propose already because you know I am going to say yes, I mean I am planning on buying a house with you!” I then told him I knew he wouldn’t do it anyways because he didn’t have the ring.
I should state that about four months before the proposal I had given him my great-grandmother’s wedding ring to be resized for my engagement ring. He is also a bit of a procrastinator and generally won’t do things without a few reminders so I honestly thought the ring was still three sizes too small in a drawer somewhere.
Well he got up, walked into the dining room, and pulled down the box from on top of our coo coo clock and I sat there dumbstruck and feeling a little silly for the teasing. Then he proposed and I said yes all the while laughing and thinking about the fact that he was proposing in his boxers and I hadn’t even brushed my hair. As we were hugging and talking who we should call first my dog threw up in the hallway. So my first act with that ring on my hand was to clean up dog barf. =)
December 1, 2010 2:54 pm
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I know we are getting engaged. How do I know? We have a venue booked. But shhhh! It’s a secret! I am told that it will be this month. OMG! This month! I know I want to marry him. But I am nervous about getting engaged! I know he wants me to be over the moon thrilled and he wants me to love the ring and show it off and brag to my friends. But with our busy lives, when will this happen in a romantic way? I want to be over the moon thrilled too. I want to live up to his and my expectations and I’m nervous that I won’t.
Thanks for sharing that it is alright if it’s not ideal. Thanks for sharing that you can fudge the story.
Also, my mom made my dad wait 2 weeks for an answer! Apparently, before he proposed, they had never discussed it. Weird.
December 1, 2010 2:55 pm
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gosh i love this story. i think i had a perfect engagement story for me and my fiance but it wasn’t exactly typical. yay for getting engaged in pubs (we did too)!
December 1, 2010 2:59 pm
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I didn’t have a fairytale proposal story either and you know what? I’m married. I’m happy. So what?
Cheers to you for not saying yes when it didn’t feel right! (And saying it when it did.)
December 1, 2010 3:12 pm
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All these stories are making me wonder about how heavily “edited” the engagement stories you hear from friends, family and in the media are!
Why do we feel the need to edit? Why do people even care how you became engaged? Real life happens, your not always dressed your best or feeling your best maybe you ugly cry ( from happiness or confusion). Maybe if we stopped editing our proposal stories we could start a revolution! to Debunk the perfect proposal myth!
December 1, 2010 3:36 pm
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I suspect that there are MANY edited versions.
December 1, 2010 3:51 pm
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…of many big-life-event happenings…
December 1, 2010 6:39 pm
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My proposal was beautiful to me, but it’s not the kind of story that everyone wants to hear. He proposed in bed, so automatically I get people thinking that we were pre-post-or currently-coital. Um, no, we were watching some geeky scifi show on his computer and I’d just gotten back from brushing my teeth. “OMG, OMG, what did he say,” everyone would squeal. Seriously, everyone: my mom, my friends, my co-worker, the dress consultant and even the woman with whom I was setting up a hotel room block. So, yeah, he said some pretty serious, amazing, beautiful, weepy and PERSONAL things. I’m so over everyone thinking they are entitled to the proposal story.
You know what, skywriting and diamonds in champagne glasses are over-rated. I love your onion rings stereotypical engagement picture without the ring!
December 1, 2010 4:29 pm
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I don’t have an engagement story yet, but my parents’ isn’t of the “grand romantic gesture” variety. After talking on the phone for four months, my dad came out to visit my mom at college. While they were eating dinner (spaghetti) in a house with no furniture, my dad proposed. He didn’t have a ring because our religion frowns on jewelry (which my mom now doesn’t care about and wishes she had a ring). I don’t even think he got on one knee. And then my mom made him wait for an answer for three days! He sent her roses and she finally said yes.
It’s not perfect, or grandly romantic, but when they tell it, there’s no shame or regret (well except for Mom wanting a ring). Just a happy sparkle in their eye. I hope that, thirty years from now, no matter what my story ends up being, I’ll tell it with the same fond joy.
December 1, 2010 4:47 pm
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Hmm… maybe I proposed first if “I’m going to take you to Vegas and get you drunk and marry you” and him replying, “Why do you think you’d have to get me drunk” counts. Several months later, he asked me with a ring that I had picked out. But his reply just 4 or so months into dating was when I knew I wanted to marry him.
December 1, 2010 4:50 pm
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In college I had a professor who randomly spoke about proposals and diamonds. I think he was venting about his 3 divorces. He mentioned that a lot of people seek to have an egalitarian relationship today, yet we still continue to romanticize the “guy on one knee” story. He questioned why does the guy/partner have to be on his knee making himself smaller than the other person. He also explained the diamond business – DeBeers owns the majority of the world’s diamonds and therefore has the ability to keep diamonds highly overpriced. If they were to open their vaults, diamonds would be worth just a quarter. It was food for thought for me.
So, I said to myself: “Not me, no, I’ll be different!”
Of course, my fiance got on his knee in Bryant Park, NYC and handed me a diamond. Ha.
My point is proposals don’t have to fit into any norm or expectation. A proposal is someone making this giant step asking you to stick around them for you know, life. Ring, no ring, partner on knee, on back, on face – WHATEVER, all that matters is you’ll be together for a long time.
Congratulations, Christina!
December 1, 2010 5:06 pm
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Thank you, Christina. I needed this so much today.
I swear to God, APW is the cheapest therapy I’ve ever experienced.
December 1, 2010 5:13 pm
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We were in a good place in our relationship when he proposed (albeit only 3 months into it!), but we did not have the fairytale proposal either. We were in our PJs and he had to put “our song” on his laptop to drown out my roommate scratching on his turntables and smoking pot downstairs. ;)
Thanks for sharing your honest, real story. So much better than the Cinderella stuff, anyway. In the end, as you said, you’re with the person you should be with and you chose to be with and that in itself is enough for a joyful shout-it-into-the-night-sky moment. :)
December 1, 2010 6:25 pm
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Oh, and literally just found this article: http://www.theawl.com/2010/11/why-the-ads-for-christmas-engagement-rings-make-me-uncomfortable. Perfect timing! (Via http://turtalia.tumblr.com/)
December 1, 2010 6:31 pm
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I can totally relate to telling people about your proposal and seeing the “oh” looks on their faces! The long story is way better than the “we got engaged in my parents’ living room and I was wearing pajamas”.
We had been together for 5 years, living together for 3. We always knew we would get married but things were just dragging on, and I felt like this was one thing I was leaving up to him so I never nagged.
I spent Christmas day at my parents house with plans to see him on the 26th. Christmas night, I SOBBED myself to sleep, thinking it was never going to happen and I was going to have to really figure some things out in my life. Suddenly, I remembered that he had gone Christmas shopping with his brother a few days earlier and was able to sleep.
The 26th comes, he shows up with big wrapped box that just sounded like a toaster oven… surprise- IT WAS! I nearly burst into tears right then. We then decided to go out to dinner and once in the car, he decided he needed to go back into the house (at this point, he apparently flashed a ring to my parents, told them he was taking care of it later and ran back out the door) I was in the car, getting more depressed by the moment. I was grumpy until we got to the restaurant when I decided to pull myself out of my funk and enjoy our night.
Back to the house, we are watching tv, with MY PARENTS (who did a very good job of keeping quiet) and he keeps going upstairs for more water, finally after about 3 water glasses, I follow him up and sit on the couch with him. I was in pajamas. He was freaking out, like literally his poor heart was literally pounding and I was beginning to think he was actually sick… finally he grabs the box, gets down on one knee and says “I should have done this a long time ago, but will you marry me?”
We’ve been married for 11 days. Our proposal story is part of our history. I love it.
December 1, 2010 6:55 pm
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I LOVE this post. The days after my engagement I laid in bed, so totally overwhelmed, I felt like a deluge of life had just smacked me down. I knew I was going to be with my FH forever, but like I always say, planning a wedding with divorced families (mine) is like negotiating a hostage crisis! Oy!
My engagement was so very us, and not very fairy-tale-ish, and we do (strike that, I DO) edit it at times. We knew we were going to end up together, and one day FH left for work and calmly said, “Why don’t you look at rings and let me know what you like?” Which I apparently mistook as him saying, “Plan the entire wedding ASAP.” We went to look at rings, and saw that Zales was having a restyling event on August 20th where we could make our own ring. We loved that idea…but I still wanted a surprise proposal. We counted down to “Ring Day” and went to design the ring…which we did, then we went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner, picked up the ring…and wandered into the parking lot totally lost and excited and giddy. I knew I couldn’t wait to be engaged. Knowing the ring would be in our home and not on my finger would have driven me nuts. I told him that as long as he was comfortable with it, I wouldn’d mind giving up the “surprise.” So, we decided to go get coffee and calm down a bit. He drove us right into the parking spot that he parked in on our first date (and we had hung out in his car on the date), and he told me all the most beautiful things, then stopped to stare at me and smile, and I go, “You KNOW, you’re SUPPOSED TO ASK ME” like an idiot. Luckily he knows me well enough and laughed and said he did know that…ha. Anyway, we got engaged in a car! And as his grandmother puts it, every time she hears the story, “I don’t believe it was the front seat!” :) Great post. It is SO nice to feel that I’m wasn’t crazy for feeling depressed after getting engaged! Love this website.
December 1, 2010 7:11 pm
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Our engagement was somewhat similar. We had been talking about getting married for some time. We were planning a trip to the area where we’d talked about getting married. He mentioned that it would be a good idea to look at some wedding venues while we were there. Like Olivia, I took this as, “O.k., let’s plan a wedding!”
I waited on a proposal for a few months, and though we talked about marriage and planning our wedding constantly, it never came. I was getting a lot of pressure from friends to the effect of, “He needs to put a ring on it.” It’s not something I’m proud of, but it very much affected me.
Finally, one night a couple of weeks before our trip, we went to his parents’ house for dinner. They asked what we would be doing on our trip, and he changed the subject. In the car on the way home, we got into a heated discussion. It just felt like crap to be looking at wedding venues and not able to share this information with his family because we weren’t officially engaged.
After several hours of discussion, we had a much better understanding of each other’s feelings and motivations. In his quest to save for the “perfect” ring and plan a romantic surprise proposal, he hadn’t taken into consideration the emotional roller coaster I was going through in waiting for the proposal. On the other hand, I hadn’t taken into consideration that he was dealing with his side of the emotional equation is regards to society’s pressures for men in proposing.
We ended up going ring shopping the next day for a simple ring that fit within our means. Once I found a ring I loved, I ended up just wearing it out of the store. We “proposed” to each other in the car on the way home.
When we got home, we decided it would be funny to take photos of our dog with the ring box, “proposing.” Somehow, this turned into my proposal story for extended family and acquaintances. It was just easier. Like the woman in the original article, I experienced the same set of guilt in a somewhat fabricated proposal story. Friends who heard about the real proposal story were so unimpressed, even to the point of seeming disappointed. My fiance’s guy friends have been even worse, giving him tons of grief for the lack of a formal proposal.
I know I’m not doing any good by contributing to the false narrative of what a proposal should be. In speaking to my fiance in the months since, I realize that I wouldn’t have our engagement any other way – shouldn’t that be enough? As of today, I am vowing to tell everyone the real, beautiful story behind our engagement. Reading all of your stories has inspired me to do just that, and stand up to the haters. Thank you all!
December 1, 2010 8:20 pm
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“Once I found a ring I loved, I ended up just wearing it out of the store. We “proposed” to each other in the car on the way home.”
Ha! That was so us. Even though we TOLD them at the store that he wasn’t planning on asking me that night, they (for size reasons, which looking back makes no sense ’cause the band was sized before) made me try it on, I didn’t wanna take it off! I did though, but twenty minutes later it was back on!
And yes, because I took the “look at rings” to mean “plan the wedding,” my mother and I started planning everything out but I didnt’ want to tell FH because he hadn’t actually asked me yet…oh, the things that go through our heads!
December 3, 2010 9:25 am
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Love Love Love this post! My proposal was amazing, but not in any kind of “traditional” fairy tale kind of way. My fiance and I have been dating for 10 years, and I wasn’t sure that this wedding was ever going to happen. For a really long time, he’d been saying that if we did get married, we’d do it standing in a blow up pool with a palm tree, and so that’s what I got. That, and a ring pop! Which I of course immediately ate. We eventually went and got a non-candy ring too.
It wasn’t anything that people ever gush over, but it was perfect for us, and meant alot to both of us. Plus now I have a blow up pool in my Brooklyn apartment. Who doesn’t love that!
December 1, 2010 8:43 pm
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Oh, and he asked me to take out the trash before he did all this.
December 1, 2010 8:45 pm
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Yes, yes, yes.
I didn’t have a dramatic proposal, in a bad way, or in a good way. I had a not planned proposal, where we found a ring that I loved in an estate store, and I tried it on, and he bought it, and then we went “so….wait. Are we engaged now? for real?” and didn’t really react until afterwards, when we went for a walk and sat by the ocean (lucky us away in California) and after like 20 minutes decided to call our parents.
I think it was perfect, I would have died if there had been a big moment! But I get tired of the look I get from people when they ask for the proposal story and there isn’t one.
December 1, 2010 9:03 pm
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Just adding a late two cents to say, this totally made me tear up. I don’t know if it’s because of your extreme honesty, or bravery, or what. But, you’re awesome. Good for you for waiting to say yes when it was right. :)
December 1, 2010 11:13 pm
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I love this story because I think we need to start admitting that things aren’t perfect and hollywood-ish in our lives. This doesn’t just concern proposals and weddings, but our entire lives. We seem to work so hard of putting up this facade of pure happiness and perfect lives and relationships. It’s even difficult to admit to our closest friends that it’s not perfect, we have doubts and we feel disappointed in ourselves/others.
I like to read these stories because it makes me feel less alone, less screwed up, when all I see is perfectly put together people that seems so content with how their lives are playing out. I read blogs or see facebook profiles where people carefully show photos and stories of themselves and puts anything that doesn’t fit the image out of sight. In an era where internet is so often used for only blasting and advertising edited versions of fun stuff or awesome moments, it’s always comforting to know that others too have not-so-great moments that don’t make it to a facebook status…
December 2, 2010 4:49 am
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On the other side of things, I have a friend who got a completely perfect fairytale proposal… in the midst of a kind of sucky relationship, which has turned into a kind of sucky marriage.
I think part of the myth of the perfect proposal is that if the proposal is perfect, your marriage will be perfect. Same with weddings too, actually. But that’s really just not the case.
December 2, 2010 8:49 am
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The engagement story we can’t tell our families:
I knew he was planning something. My birthday was coming up, but it didn’t have “surprise birthday party” written all over it, so I started thinking that maybe he was going to propose. We’ve always been very open and frank about marriage. We wanted to get married since shortly after we got together and realized what a perfect match we were for each other. We had talked about getting engaged a million times. It was just a matter of time. I asked my best friends what he was up to, they were no help. I started to get sulky. He has a hard time keeping secrets from me even when I’m not being a total brat about it, so it was only a matter of time before he cracked and admitted that he was planning on proposing to me on my birthday. And then he just let me sweat it out. For nearly a month.
One morning we were curled up in bed at a truly alarming hour of the morning (it must have been just after 6), and we were completely butt-nekkid because very late at night and very early in the morning are the only times we feel comfortable being intimate in either of our houses, since we live with our respective parents (awkward TMI, but it adds that extra layer of embarrassing to the story, that we were immediately post-coitus), and the topic of him proposing came up again. I asked if he was really going to make me wait, as I had a million times, and he said yes, with a bratty little smirk. I told him he didn’t need to wait for a special occasion or an audience, and he said “Really?” as if it had never, ever crossed his mind that the only people who needed to be there were the two of us. I said of course, and he said “well then, will you marry me?” I responded with “SERIOUSLY?! YOU’RE SERIOUSLY ASKING ME NOW? I’M NOT WEARING PANTS.” And he said yes, he was serious. And I told him “No. …(pause)… I mean, Yes.” And then burst into tears. And then told him that I needed to find some goddamn pants and a hairbrush so that I could go wake up my mom to tell her. I was naked. I had morning breath and terrible bed hair. He didn’t care. He told me I was beautiful and kissed me anyway. There was no ring. He wanted to make sure I picked something I liked, and we needed to be able to afford it, so we waited to pick one together.
I usually just leave it at “We were curled up in bed and he asked.” It’s just simpler that way.
I didn’t get a proper proposal when I got my ring, either. We had gone to a friend who is a jeweler and picked a vintage setting with a 1 carat black diamond. Simple, very classic and unique, and a reasonable price. We were still going to have to make payments on it, but having gone to a friend we knew our setting and stone would be available and not get sold out from under us, and that we could take our time to pay it, since I’m still out of work and he literally just started a new job. Less than an hour after giving our friend the money for the diamond to have the work started on the ring, which he told me would take at least 3 weeks, my fiance started playing with the placeholder ring he had given me. He started tugging it off my finger, commenting on how clunky it is. I said I liked it, he said I was cute, but that I would probably like this more, and just casually pulled the ring out of his pocket. No box, nothing, just “here’s the ring” and then grinned at me like a jerk while I blubbered and stuttered and tried to wrap my brain around how the ring had magically ended up in his pocket. He had been scheming with our jeweler friend, who slipped him the ring while I wasn’t looking earlier in the evening.
At first, under the elation, I felt a lot of guilt and disappointment. I love my fiance, but I had obligated him to tell me he was going to propose and I started to worry that I had shoved him into it before he was ready, that I had made him do something he wasn’t prepared to do, because I’m so nosy and pushy. He maintained his zen composure while I had about a million little panic attacks that he was going to realize what an asshole I am, that he was going to decide I was more trouble than I was worth if I couldn’t even let him propose the way he wanted, and eventually he told me that he was happy with the way things went. It was much truer to “us” than any public proposal would have been. Neither of us likes to be the center of attention. It was best done in private. He would have liked it if my daughter (and therefore more clothing) had been present, but that the way it happened was perfect and he had no regrets. After thinking about it and listening to his logic, I agreed.
And there you go. People get a little confused and seem let down when I tell them that we were just curled up in bed one morning. I don’t care what they think anymore.
December 2, 2010 11:24 am
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Truly. That is the most perfect proposal for the two of you. I couldn’t imagine the two of you making it a big production. And I couldn’t be happier for two of the most amazing people (re)finding each other.
**hugs**
December 2, 2010 11:32 am
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Like MJ, I think your proposal was perfect for the two of you. Making spectacles of yourselves just isn’t what you guys do. I’m so happy that you’re engaged and planning your wedding! :)
December 2, 2010 2:20 pm
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Love this post…it’s amazing how easily we can get caught up in the expectations of others and feel ashamed of our reality. I had a perfectly imperfect proposal too, that I wouldn’t trade for the world. My FH travels quite a bit and when he was in Hong Kong in May, I received a drunken Blackberry Message proclaiming that I was the love of his life. We joked that there was really nowhere to go after proclaiming that sort of thing, but that he had to try to up the ante on his next trip. Not to disappoint…while he was there again in October I received this…
D: Will you marry me mama?
Brandy: Yes, nothing would make me happier than to be your wife.
D: Done!
D: Yes I asked you officially on text.
Brandy: Lmao…you’re so cute.
Brandy: Officially on text while drunk 7000 miles away and a day ahead.
D: Yeppers!
Brandy: Are you serious?
D: Yes.
Brandy: You’re seriously asking me to marry you. Like fo schizzle?
D: Yep.
D: Text is a good story from Hong Kong.
Brandy: Can we leave out the part where you’re drunk?
Brandy: :P
D: Absolutely.
He followed it up by asking me an hour later via web cam chat and I celebrated that night at dinner with our best friends, instead of him. With all of his travel, we’re constantly connected through our Blackberries, so I can’t think of a more appropriate and genuine way for our proposal to happen. <3
December 2, 2010 11:28 am
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OMG I love this story :)
December 2, 2010 4:16 pm
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Awww, love it! My man & I got engaged on the phone, while we were on trips apart, and had a few days before we were home again, so I got to celebrate with my mom for a few days. ;D
January 21, 2011 12:10 am
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Oh Christina! Thank you. For your bravery. Your candid words. Your strength and your pragmatism. THIS is a great and TRUE story. The kind that real life is truly made of and it’s beautiful in that way.
My BFF who introduced me to APW had a not quite the proposal she or her fiance intended and I think she feels the same sense of shame when she tells the story. But that’s the beautiful thing about APW. Bucking the hell out of what you’re “supposed” to experience and rocking what we’ve got.
Love this community!
December 2, 2010 4:14 pm
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