To start out, Brian sent me a beautiful arrangement of a dozen red roses in a vase, with a note that said to be ready at noon the next day.

The next day, when he arrived, he asked, “Are you ready? He’s waiting.” Brian pulled the curtain away from the kitchen window to reveal a black stretch limo with a driver standing in front of it!

The driver drove us around DC; it was a perfect sunny day. Brian mentioned that we would be going to the waterfront eventually (where we had our first date), but first, we would stop at the cherry blossoms that were in full bloom.

We got out of the limo and walked around the tidal basin, taking pictures. Brian had his jacket with him, and I asked him why since it was so warm; he told me it was for us to sit on. We found a nice tree and camped out underneath it. He took the ring box out of his jacket pocket—sneaky guy—and proposed right there. I of course said, “Yes!”

We walked around the cherry blossoms for a while longer, then went back to the limo where chilled champagne was waiting for us. The next stop was the waterfront—we walked along the water to the spot where we stood during our first date.

Brian did a great job of making it a day I will never forget.

Mr. & Mrs. Brian P.

This little guy delivered the ring! We mean the dog and not the appetizer that he is staring at.

Plan A

The proposal was set for Monday, January 21. We both had the day off because of Martin Luther King Jr Day.
Simple enough plan. I would cook dinner and, at some point, the neighbor’s Beagle Petie would burst in with the ring attached to his collar. Petie has a history of bursting in whenever he comes home from a walk because 1) I do not close the front door all the way and 2) he is always hoping to recreate that slice of heaven when he came in to discover my grocery bags on the kitchen floor.

Suz was out of town all day so I had some time to pull everything together. I shopped and prepared a seafood-themed meal (shrimp & artichoke kabobs, a seafood chowder and swordfish steaks with a mustard sauce). Things were arranged with my neighbor for Petie to come over at 8:30 PM. they would follow bring flowers and a camera.

But we never counted on … Target!

Things Fall Apart

Not in on the secret, Suz got distracted on the way home by the siren call of Target. So she did not make it back until after 10:00. So everything got put on hold until the next day. But on the bright side, we had new curtain rods!

Plan B

Same as Plan A but different night. Fortunately, this time she showed up. Suz remarked over dinner that I must have been bored on my day off to spend so much time cooking.

The neighbor texted a few times for the signal of when to come over. I had to cover and pretend that the messages were from work.

Petie burst in. I knelt down to unattach the ring from his collar. I asked her to marry me and got the answer that every man waits for:

“Are you serious?”

Epilogue

Suz eventually said “yes”.

Ted S and Suzan F.

While we were dating, we kept things low-budget, like going out for Chinese food at a little shopping center near our grad school. But the proposal was going to be first-class, all the way.

I invited Blanche to pack her suitcase but wouldn’t tell her our destination. Between us we’d visited almost all of the U.S. landmarks you can name, except one: Las Vegas! Unfortunately, I could not convince the flight attendant to keep our destination secret, so, Blanche did find out where were heading once we got into the airplane and settled in our seats.

In Vegas we did all the touristy sightseeing: the little Eiffel Tower at the Paris Las Vegas, gondola rides at the Venetian, Egyptian artifacts at the Luxor, and the fountain-light-music show at the Bellagio. I kept it casual, but parts of that “impromptu” agenda were carefully orchestrated, like I had already made reservations at the Bellagio’s Jasmine months in advance for a romantic, award-winning dinner experience where I would pop the question and offer her an engagement ring. So she wouldn’t guess what was coming, I casually took a look at the restaurant’s menu as we walked through the casino and asked, “What do you think about having dinner here tonight?”

Maybe 99 out of 100 people would have said, “Yes,” but instead she looked at the menu and turned it down—nothing vegetarian on the menu! I felt like an idiot. The rest of the day, I scrambled to find a fancy restaurant that could take us on short notice—and had vegetarian food—without letting Blanche know. We were staying at the Mirage, and our best option was right downstairs, the Moongate—yes, Chinese food, again!

We placed our orders and I was preparing to propose when three large men with Texas drawls started laughing and talking so loudly nobody could ignore them. They were going to ruin our moment! Luckily, they quieted down while they were eating. Our food had just arrived, and Blanche was in the process of picking out her mushrooms and offering them to me when I dropped to one knee and made my own offer, with the ring. She said yes and people clapped and whistled, including the Texans.

Vadim and Blanche K.

After a Neighborhood Watch organizational meeting that ran very late, we were all hungry, so I suggested pizza. Three ladies and I decided to meet at Pizza Hut for dinner. In the parking lot, two of the ladies changed their minds, so that’s how Jeanne and I had our first “date.”

Seven months later, we knew each other pretty well. She was a single mother for 14 years; I had been single for five years. We took a little vacation together to Ashville, North Carolina, to tour the Vanderbilt Estate and meet up with my mother and some of my mother’s friends. As we drove back, I asked, “What do you think about marriage?”

It was meant as a casual question, and it led to a two-hour discussion on the benefits and concerns of marriage and married life. As the conversation continued, it became increasingly clear to me that we were going to get married. There was no actual “proposal,” unless you count proposing we go for pizza.

Skip and Jeanne M.

We had been dating for ten years. We were in Florida for a friend’s wedding and staying at a beachside hotel. Peter woke me up—way too early—and told me to join him on the balcony to admire the view. Still in my pajamas, I put on my glasses and joined him. Peter handed me a present, a photo album of the precious highlight moments from our ten years together. Ten years of wonderful memories kept my attention. So, I was completely taken by surprise when I turned to the last page and saw a picture of Peter, down on one knee, holding out a diamond engagement ring. I looked up from the photo album, and there he was, doing the same thing, in real life.

Peter and Shelby A.

I started planning our wedding in September for a wedding date the following September, but my friends kept politely hinting, “Are you sure you’re getting married?”

There hadn’t been any official engagement, no popping the question, no ring or anything like that. We just knew we were getting married, and we were fine with that. For a while. As people kept hinting that I should “check with John” to make sure the upcoming wedding wasn’t a figment of my imagination, I in turn put the pressure on John.

Walking through a Wal-mart parking lot one day, we were discussing it, again, and I erupted with, “When will I get a ring?” He practically threw the box at me. Inside was the ring. So, technically, we got engaged a few months before the wedding, in the Wal-mart parking lot. I hope any future grooms reading this will take a hint: Do not propose in a parking lot. Do not propose in Wal-mart. And make sure she gets a ring before people start questioning her sanity. Thank you.

John and Donna T.

Bob and I had dated during high school and into college at the University of Maryland. During his senior year (I was a junior) in 1965, we talked about our future and becoming engaged. For my February birthday, he wrote me a little poem about going shopping together for a ring as soon as his income tax refund check arrived.

A friend in one of my classes had recently gotten engaged and had a family member with a jewelry store in DC, so that is where we went. We ordered a simple gold ring, with a single diamond. We were told it would be ready in a week or two.

Not too long after that, we were driving down to spend the weekend with our respective parents. Instead of taking me home, he took a detour and drove to a lovely beach on the Chesapeake Bay—no one else was around. He took out the ring and asked me to marry him. We were both so excited and headed on down to tell both sets of parents!

We got married in June 1965 and will celebrate our 43rd anniversary in 2008. I still wear that same ring, though it was necessary to replace the diamond about 25 years ago when it fell out while I was mowing grass and was lost.

Bob and Fran P.

We had been seeing each other for a year and discussed where do we go from here? We had talked about rings, but had not done any shopping or serious discussion about what we would want. One Saturday we were out shopping all day, we ended up at my favorite jeweler’s store and we looked around. Nothing was really said as we looked at the rings. I was trying on many different types and then one really caught both of us. I tried it on and it had that wow factor. It was too big and John said, “Is that the one you like?” I said, “Yes,” and the jeweler measured my ring size and John purchased the ring. A couple of weeks went by and he said, “I will pick up the ring in a couple of weeks.” I was getting excited. I usually go home for lunch, as I only live minutes away from work. I was eating and John stopped by. He had never been over before on my lunch hour. So, I continued eating, and he went to the couch and threw a pillow on the floor and proceeded to get on his knees and propose. I was blown away.

John and Roberta C.

Neutering your new dog might not sound like the most romantic plan for Valentine’s Day, but it has to be a thousand times less romantic for the dog. We had just gotten our dog, Denny, and he needed to be neutered. John thought it would be cool to ask the veterinarian if we could keep Denny’s “equipment” in a little jar. John would say, “That way, if he misbehaves, I can say, ‘I’ve got you by the balls!’” Weird sense of humor, yes. But I didn’t think he’d actually do it.

We picked up poor Denny, and in my concern over the dog and the additional vet-related concerns, I completely forgot John’s idea. Before we drove away, he grinned at me and said, “I got it.” He held up a little jar. I didn’t want to look—who would?—but he kept urging me. I finally did, and it just looked like a jar full of water. John shook it a little, and a necklace floated into view. Originally, he planned on having the engagement ring at the bottom of the jar. But our friends and family persuaded him not to do that—too gross. Actually, it would have been perfect because it would have been totally him.

John and Ruby S.

Our New York apartment was really small, so Kyle planned a “weekend away” in a New York hotel—where the hotel room was probably bigger than our apartment’s total floor space. We went to a show and ate dinner at a posh restaurant. It was like a little vacation, even if we lived just a few miles away. At dinner, Kyle got down on one knee and proposed.

Kyle and Jennie M.