There are so many wonderful and inventive ways to propose marriage. We did a shout-out asking readers to contribute their own marriage proposal stories. Here are four of the best.
Only a generation or so ago, there was one way to propose marriage.
The man went to see his girlfriend’s father and asked him for permission to marry his daughter. This formal way of acquiring a fiancé reflected the patriarchal society of the times, where men made the important decisions and women had no say in the matter.
Thankfully those days are gone (although some young men will continue to ask their future bride’s father for her hand, just for the vintage factor of it!) and now, there are so many wonderful and inventive ways to propose marriage.
We did a shout-out asking readers to contribute their own marriage proposal stories. Here are four of the best.
1. Completely unexpected
“My significant other (I hate to call him my boyfriend because I’m 63 and he is 62) and I were just sitting on the couch watching Season Four of Breaking Bad.
We’d been living together for about five years and we’d never even talked about getting married. Both of us had been married before—me, twice—and we met late in life so the idea of a wedding seemed unnecessary.
But all the sudden he turned to me and asked me if he could ask me a question. Thinking it was about something in the plotline he didn’t understand, I said sure.
He took a lovely diamond solitaire out of his jeans pocket and asked me to marry him. I almost fell off the couch!
Never in my wildest dreams did I think he had any desire to tie the knot again. But we are going to do small friends and family-only wedding this winter, and we’ve never been so sure about anything in our lives.”
2. Just too dog-gone cute
“My girlfriend and I had been living together for about six months and we’d been discussing the possibility of getting a puppy.
We both love dogs but wanted to be sure we were going to stick together because I can only imagine how hard breaking up could be and then having to decide who gets the dog. As part of our research, we read up a lot about different breeds and spent weekends going to the SPA and animal shelters, just getting a sense of what was out there.
One Saturday she spotted Jesse, a little bichon that just took her heart away. So we started the process to adopt Jesse. The day we went to pick him up, I had pre-arranged to slip into the paperwork my marriage proposal.
I made it look like an official document, like some kind of county license, but it was basically a proposal saying that Jesse could not go home with us unless we were married, so would you do the honor of being my wife?
Oh, my fiancé cried tears of joy at both becoming engaged and Jesse’s mommy.
Everyone at the shelter clapped and some cried, too. In fact, we are inviting all of those people to our wedding next year!”
3. Take-out Chinese food
“My boyfriend and I work long hours and really have no desire to do any home cooking; we are just too tired in the evenings. But all that delivery or fast food was really putting a dent in our budget, and frankly, we didn’t eat very healthfully.
So we made a commitment to start cooking at home for 30 days straight—kind of a 30-day challenge.
But before we started, my boyfriend said he wanted to do one last big, delicious meal delivered to our door (this turned out to be an excuse to propose to me, as you will see. Keep reading).
We rang up our very favorite Chinese restaurant and put in our traditional order: egg rolls, mu-shu pork, Singapore noodles, kung pao chicken…the works! The food’s delivered and we feast.
Dessert was the traditional fortune cookies. I broke mine open and started to pull out that little slip of paper to read my fortune. But instead of something like “You will soon meet fame and wealth”, it read “Will you marry me?”.
Turns out my boyfriend had somehow replaced the real fortune with his proposal, and in fact the whole ‘Let’s order Chinese!’ was a set up to ask for my hand in marriage.
Of course, I said yes, but only after hot tea and eating the other fortune cookies!”
4. Let the children do the work
“My girlfriend and I live in a blended family situation. We both have children from previous marriages, and we have them full time. They all get along well, like real brothers and sisters. I knew I wanted to make our union official but didn’t want to ask my girlfriend in any kind of traditional way.
So I had the kids do the work!
One Sunday morning I’d arranged for the kids to make us a brunch and serve it to us in bed, with a note that said – Please marry daddy. He really wants you to.
The kids were so excited about bringing the tray into our room they almost dumped all the pancakes on the rug. It was such a great moment—their eyes sparkling with anticipation as she read the note.
Of course, she said yes and we all celebrated with a ‘real’ brunch at a restaurant. The thing I really liked about this proposal is that it got the children to be part of the idea, which is how it should be. Remaking a family is not just about the two adults and this way the kids felt like they had agency in this new chapter of us.”
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