I'm so cheesy! I would love a plane with a big sign:

Would you MARRY ME?

Since that's is probably not going to happen I'll stick with my guy waiting for me outside the airport with a big sign (again) and on his knees with a flower arrangement....

i've always thought it would be cool to be proposed to at a sports event...i know i know it's so cliche LOL

I think it's the most romantic when it comes out of nowhere. Like when you guys are doing something normal like watching tv or whatever. And BAM he comes out of nowhere with "will you marry me" There is somethign so simple and sweet and sincere about it, it just makes my heart melt!

I saw the sweetist thing ever... someone paid for one of those advertising signs on the street that said "Nanny, you are the most beatiful woman on earth, will you marry me"

Hmmm... Guess I'm not normal then, because at no point when I was young, or older for that matter, have I imagined Prince Charming getting on one knee and proposing.

There is too much pressure on the guy to live up to some hollywood standard of proposing. I have listened to girls one-up each other with their engagement stories. Honestly, who cares?

Whats so wrong about dreaming? jeeez

When my now-fiance asked me to be his girlfriend he said, "So when are you going to be my girlfriend?" and I said, "Yesterday." When he proposed in February, after saying some other really sweet things, he asked, "So when are you going to be my wife?" and I replied, "Yesterday."

My husband proposed to me on a day that I wasn't feeling that good and called out of work. I was napping in bed and woke up to find a ring on my pillow, with him sitting right there beaming at me. Next thing I heard: "Will you marry me?" Needless to say, I started feeling better after that.

aww, kendallina. that's really cute.

aw, that's cute too Masqueraded_Angel. i'm so excited to live vicariously through these posts!

My friend and her now-husband wandered into St. Patrick's Cathedral on a Saturday afternoon stroll. As they got close to the altar, he got down on one knee and and asked her if she'd meet him in that exact spot in one year to marry him. I LOVE that story.

My husband carried around my engagement ring for two months before proposing. He was waiting for the "right" time.

After I made him dinner one night, we went down to Stillwater, MN to walk by the St. Croix river. We had ice cream and watched the sunset. Spur of the moment, we decided to head to the scenic overlook outside of downtown Stillwater. We stood at the edge at the beautiful landscape. Out of nowhere he asked, "Will you marry me?" I said yes of course!

He ran back to his truck because the ring was inside...he wasn't planning on asking so he had no reason to have it in his pocket. When he came back, he got down on one knee and opened the ring box.

Later when I asked him why he decided to ask me then, he said that at that moment he knew he couldn't live without me being his wife anymore.

I love engagment stories. I've been daydreaming my proposal since i could remember. it changes all the time. I really like kendallina's and Marci's story. Keep the stories coming.
****"Everything in life is only for now."-Avenue Q****

My fiance proposed right before Christmas. December 22 to be exact. This is how it happened!! On this evening we were going to my parents house to have Christmas dinner. We decided to pick up the apartment because we were going to have company later. I had a small Christmas tree as a centerpiece on our table with stockings hanging behind it on the wall. When i went over to the table to clear everything off of there i saw the ring box. It was the inital first reaction take your breath away suprise. Only when I opened it it was empty! I turned around and was like what is this?????? He kept saying he didnt know. Had no idea where it came from. So I chunked it at him and told him it was a really mean joke. We laughed and went on to my parents. When we got back i got to thinking even more. What if he put it on the Christmas tree and blah blah blah. So im starring at it. Hes like what are you looking at. I said ok enough what is the idea of this ring box. He said he guessed santa had messed up and brought me an empty box by accident. Then he asked me if i checked my stocking which i had and i didnt feel it. But i felt it that time and it was there. I turned around and he was gone. I walked around the corner into the hall and there he was on one knee!!!!!!! And just so you know I SAID YES!!!!!!!

ahhh great stories..one of my fav as silly as it sounds was when Max asked Loreli to marry him on Gilmore Girls(i know i know) but he had 1,000 yellow daisies..it was just so perfect!

Cute stories!

more engagement stories please! i'm having a crappy day at work and these are making me feel a lot better!

sorry your havin a crappy day. but i only have one story!!!

Ok, here is mine: The weekend before it had happened, I went out of town for a bachelorette party. My husband (then boyfriend, obvi) was staying home (or so I thought). It turns out he traveled all the way to Washington DC from San Francisco to pick up the ring! The next weekend he suggested that we go to Napa, one of our favorite activities. We went to two wineries in the morning, then had lunch and then he said he had scheduled a tour at Neibaum Coppola winery. So we arrived there for our tour and this lady came to greet us. She took us up a hill behind the winery to a picnic table that had an amazing view. She opened a bottle of wine for us and then disappeared. We then decided to take a little walk out on the cliff above the winery. My husband got down on one knee and proposed. Of course I said Yes! We came back to our table where there was champagne waiting! A little over a year later we got married just down the road from the winery.

Here we are right after it happened!

i think these stories are all really sweet, but popgoestheworld makes a good point. the little girl-dreaming-prince charming is offensive to me. it's the 21st century -- women and girls should be encouraged to want an equal and to be an equal, and a full life before and after that. that language is unnecessary and dated, but the stories are fun.

I think we can be strong, independant 21st century women and still dream about prince charming. They are not mutually exclusive by any means.

i agree with Team!

I am in agreement with Team and SaRaH. I refer to my husband as my Prince Charming because there are days where he does rescue me from a bad day by making me laugh and being there for me. There are days when I rescue him as well. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be swept off our feet, just as long as we don't forget to fight for ourselves.

I think these stories are very cute.

I sometimes feel very abnormal in terms of things like this. Like I really haven't planned my wedding or dreamed about the day I get engaged. I grew up as a tomboy and I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

I reread my comment and it does sound very wet blanket-ish. But I really did mean that I haven't been waiting, and that I probably am not normal because of that.

I do feel like people sometimes have abnormal expectations when it comes to engagements, weddings, and marriages, and that it sometimes leads to disappointment. I have had friends who weren't happy with their proposal because it wasn't a romantic enough story. It seemed like they wanted a nice story more than they wanted to actually be engaged, know what I mean?

And I don't think that wanting to get married or wanting a good man makes someone old-fashioned. But the fairy tale language does imply that we're lost in our castle waiting for someone to save us. I'm sure that wasn't the intent of this post. I'm sure we all have a more liberal definition of what this means now. I guess I'm just sensitive to that language for some reason.

And as for me... I have told my boyfriend that if he does propose, to do it in private. That is the only idea I have of how it should go. So I guess I will be disappointed if I see a plane flying by with Will You Marry Me XXXX? next time we're at the beach

When my now-husband proposed he talked me in to going out to dinner to celebrate my new job, it which wasn't a big deal just a summer position as a receptionist at the company where he worked, I didn't really want to go out, but he just pushing so I agreed. When he picked me up I asked where he wanted to go he said that one of his co-workers suggested a resturant that we had never been to. After a while of driving we were on these back roads in the middle of nowhere and he wouldn't let me help him with the directions. Then we finally came to this small park which had a waterfall which we had visited a few years before as a weekend outing. At this point I was starting to get a little nervous because I was starting to figure it out. So we looked at the waterfall for a while and then turned to leave, but then he sat me down at a picnic table and pulled out my acostic guitar, which I had loned to him when he picked me up earlier, because he said he needed it for his band. He then played one of my favorite songs "YOu Belong To Me" and pulled a ring out of the guitar case and asked if I would always belong to him. And of course I said yes and we went to dinner to celebrate both our new engagement and my new job. He told me later that he had to propose before I started working because all his coworkers knew what he was planning and he was afraid that someone would let it slip. And that was all two years ago, and we're as happy together as ever!

popgoestheworld; how about if the guy hands you a ring catalog and asks if there's anything in there you'd wear? come on, a little romance at the moment when you say "i want to be with you for the rest of my life" is not only okay i think it would be strange any other way, don't-cha think????

I'm not anti-romance! I just don't think our men can always live up to our high expectations, that's all. I'm sure we don't always live up to theirs, either

Brief history: I am a teacher (28yrs old), he runs an online art gallery (32 years old), and we had been dating for 3 years, and boy was I was ready to get hitched! I felt like everyone around me was getting engaged, and was honestly wondering “when was it going to happen to me?” Little did I know he was up to something!!!

It was the day before my Spring Break in March of ’03, and when I arrived to school, my assistant brings in an envelope that she thought I dropped. Enclosed was a photo of my parents and his parents, whom to my knowledge had never met. That is when I started wondering what was up…Then I get an email from Gary to go to the school’s office at lunch to pick up a package…I haul butt to the office to find the package. I rip the paper open…a framed picture of the Eiffel Tower with my passport attached to it. WHAT??? There was a paper attached that read “We’re going to Paris and London.” Oh my goodness!

Gary had arranged for my class to be covered in the afternoon, because we had a plane to catch!!! At this point I had never traveled outside of the US, so I don’t have to tell you how excited I was!

I run back to my classroom to gather my things, and in walks Gary with my parents! It just kept getting better and better! We grabbed a bite to eat with my parents (who were in on the plan for a long time) and my sister (who was as surprised as I was)!! Then off to the airport…

Paris is truly the most romantic city…we toured museums, saw the city by bike and boat, ate great food, drank great wine, and made many lasting memories. On the evening that we arrived, we ended up at the Eiffel Tower. We found a park bench and started talking, and talking, and talking… (come on, just pop the question)…the sun went down and the tower lit up…wow…That’s when he dropped to one knee and asked the long awaited question… “Will you marry me?” My response was...you guessed it…YES!!!!

We continued to thoroughly enjoy Paris and London. It was truly every girl’s dream come true!

We were married about a year and half later on July 10, 2004.

lol, well you won't get any argument from me there. and you're just as married what ever the build up and the ceremony. my girls love to hear the stories of dh and i dating. my 6 year old said to me the other day "so did you have any boyfriends before daddy? why don't you tell me about them". i don't think so.

I understand what you're saying, popgoestheworld. My mother drilled it into my sister and me that marriage is forever but that many girls just dream about the wedding - and it's only one day. So I also haven't spent a lot of time thinking about my wedding and all that goes with that.

I do appreciate a privately romantic moment, and that is how my boyfriend gave me my ring. No big story; but a very special night for us.

My sweet husband and I were living together when he proposed. We had worked together since May, but were both attached. We started dating in mid-July and moved in together in August. While we were discussing living arrangements, he said the only way we could live together was if I accepted a promise ring from him beforehand. Which I thought was cheesy, but still very sweet on his part.

So, I knew he was going to ask me to marry him at some point, but I had no clue when. One day in September or October, we are just laying around the apartment. I think we had just got done cleaning and I was laying across the bed talking to him while he was standing across the room. All of a sudden, he comes over to the bed and gets down on one knee in front of where my head is laying at the edge of the bed. He then takes my hands and proceeds to tell me how much he loves me and how I am the most beautiful girl in the world and would I marry him? He pulls out the most beautiful diamond ring I had ever seen and slips it on my finger. I was pretty astonished because he had been shopping in secret for over a month for the perfect diamond solitaire...We had never even talked about rings or what I might want (you know - shape, metal, etc). It was just very touching to know he went through all this trouble to pick one out that he wanted me to have.

While it isn't the most romantic engagement story compared to others, it still blows me away at the effort he put into searching for a ring. Recently, I had the diamond put into a new setting that is encrusted with smaller diamonds. I got onto an elevator at work and I guess the light in the elevator hit the ring just right and it was sparkling pretty good...A contract worker that was there said, "Woah...Your husband must be pretty proud of you...He wants everyone to know you are taken, huh?" It made me blush, but it was the truth. I am pretty lucky to have such a sweet and loving guy for a spouse!

I consider myself a modern woman who does not want someone to take care of me but rather be my partner and confidant. I have found that in my fiance! When we first started dating 5 years ago he asked me how I would like to be proposed to and I said there are only two things I want: for him to get on one knee and for it to be a total surprise. 5 years later that is what he gave me! He made it a whole day experience. It was Valentine's day, a day we normally do very little for. But, he had been out of town for a few days (he was with his mom getting ideas on where to propose) and he said he would make it up to me. So, I got beautiful flowers, a dozen white roses, and he took me out to dinner. Then, we got our picture taken right before in front of the arch here at UGA. As we walked back to the car we decide to enjoy this beautiful fountain that was right by the car. We enjoyed it for a moment and then he got on one knee and asked! I could not have asked for anything more!

My husband brought me back to the very spot we had our first date at Navy Pier in downtown Chicago. There is a huge ferris wheel there that I had never been on before and was always bugging him to go on it. So that night he took me on the ferris wheel and proposed once our cabin got to the very top. It was quite humorous watching him trying to get on one knee in the cabin, but it was beautiful.

My favorite engagement story is my ex telling me 7 months before the wedding..."I love you but I don't want to marry you."

After 6 years (1 of engagement). What a catch! TG that one got away!

These stories are so beautiful. I've been with my boy for nine years and still nothing. Oh well, we are still pretty young....I guess.

My proposal story is pretty standard, nothing too exciting. But then again, since my fiance and I work all the time (we are both in medicine), there isn't really time to fit in anything exciting (he had the ring for 3 weeks before we even had an evening where we were both free at the same time and able to see each other for more than just an hour or two!).

Since my fiance and I met and dated while in undergrad at GW, his proposal focused around some of the things we did together when we first started dating. We went out to dinner at one of our favorite Thai restaurants where we went on one of our first dates. Afterwards, we walked down to all the monuments which are really beautiful when they are lit up at night. Now, this happened on what has turned out to be the coldest night of the winter, and since I thought we were just going to dinner, I wasn't really prepared. My fiance, in the meantime, knew what he was planning and was all bundled up, including wearing 2 pairs of socks (note: he did not bother to bring along an extra pair or a hat for me!). After walking around the Tidal Basin, we stopped at a bench across from the Jefferson and near the FDR memorial (our favorite monument), where he shared some of his favorite memories over the past 4+ years before getting down on one knee. Since it was dark out though, he had to describe the ring since I couldn't actually see it!

These are all so sweet, and now I have to tell mine. This was just over a month ago, around the time of our second anniversary. My boyfriend had told me he planned to propose sometime this year, and we'd gone to look at rings because he wanted an idea of what I liked, but that was it. We had a trip planned for our anniversary to Big Sur, which was the first place we'd said "I love you" to each other, and I knew there was no way a ring would be ready by then, so I wasn't expecting anything. We went hiking up a trail called Buzzard's Roost, which we'd also hiked on the earlier date — there's a great view of the Pacific Ocean from the top. When we made it to the top, I said "I love you" to him, and then teased that I'd said it first that time (he'd said it first the first time). He said, "Well, I have something new to say" and got down on one knee and handed me a wildflower. My response, apparently, was "Of course I'll marry you. (pause) Seriously?" which gives him something to tease me about forever.

My husband came over to my parents' house before I came home from school (yes, I was engaged my senior year of high school!) and after chatting for awhile at the kitchen table, asked me to go to my room for something. When I walked in, there was a big bouquet of flowers and a wrapped jewelry box sitting on my bed ... he proposed in front of my parents and we had a wonderful dinner with them that night.

My friend proposed to his wife over meatballs... but the wedding weas very romantic.
Daisy-Chainsaw

always wanted to be proposed to on a bridge... I dunno...

my favorite story was a friend of mine's brother had been dating rachel for a while, and one day she got a letter and it had a clue in it. the first one led her to the place they met, and there were some of her friends there who gave her the next clue. that one led her to the place where they had their first kiss and more friends were there with a note that said this is were i fell in love with you. He had told her that he wouldnt say i love you until he was going to propose, so she started to catch on. the next clue led her to his apartment, and her friend from out of town that she hadnt seen in years was there. Her friend drove her to their church, and he had the stage all set up with rose petals and a chair. on the chair he had gotten her a bible with her first and middle and his last name on it, and a rose in the middle at their verse. He took off her shoes and washed her feet (something Jesus did to show the deciples how much he loved them, and how he respected them as well) and then he finally said "i love you" and pulled the ring out from under her chair and got on one knee and proposed.

One of my favorite engagement stories is a guy who proposed via a staged pumpkin carving contest with his wife. Totally appropriate for this time of year as well. Check out the full story:

http://howigotengaged.com/engagement/story/halloween_handywork