The story of how I proposed to my wife is probably the most awkward and embarrassing tale you'll hear this month. In a nutshell, I was planning on doing the standard down-on-one-knee thing with an engagement ring in hand, but idiot that I was, I had no idea that rings could be easily resized after the fact...therefore, I was under the impression that I had to know her exact ring size before getting it.
So, my plan was to sneak into her jewelry box, borrow one of her other rings, take it with me to the jeweler to match the size like I was trying to match a copper bolt at a hardware store or something, and then return it without her noticing.
Instead, while I was opening her jewelry box in her bedroom, the wooden drawer got jammed open. Naturally it was at that exact moment that she happened to come upstairs, to the sight of her boyfriend furiously trying to close her jewelry drawer. I ended up proposing on the spot, figuring that a) I was planning on doing so anyway and b) I didn't want to get arrested for petty theft (or grand larceny) by my own girlfriend. Would've put a bit of a damper on the relationship.
The saving grace in this story was that at least it was just her and me (and now, all of you, I guess...we've been married for almost 9 years now, I think it's safe to share this tale).
Which brings me to the story below:
Portland man choreographs an elaborate proposal
PORTLAND, Ore. - Isaac Lamb may have just won the award for best-ever marriage proposal. (Or perhaps the award for most-viewed proposal.)
On Wednesday, Lamb, 31, asked his girlfriend Amy Frankel to meet him at his parents' home for dinner. On arrival, Lamb's brother asked Frankel, 33, to sit in the open back of a Honda and to put on headphones -- he said he wanted to play her a song.
As the song "Marry You" by Bruno Mars started playing, friends and family emerged to perform in an elaborately planned lip-dub dance.
Here's the video itself; watch the whole thing, and don't read any further if you don't want the buzzkill part:
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OK...amazingly elaborate, incredibly sweet. Makes my own proposal, and those of most other guys, look pretty lame and pathetic by comparison.
HOWEVER...elaborate public proposals like this also always make me wonder, isn't this also incredibly cruel to the woman if she does have doubts or was considering leaving the guy? I mean, talk about being put on the spot. She's under incredible pressure to say "yes"...and if she says "no", not only does she crush the guys' heart, but she also makes herself look like an asshole in front of all of her family & friends...
Even if she does love the guy perhaps she just found out that she's dying, or pregnant, or had a death in the family, or some other dramatic life-changing situation a few minutes earlier and isn't in a state of mind to deal with another one right that moment. Or perhaps she knows that she wants to marry him, but wanted to elope or otherwise not let all of their family/friends know about it right away for whatever reason.
Anyway, here's a few other Big Splashy Public Proposals that didn't go so well:
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On the other hand, to brighten things up a bit, here's the single most awesomely elaborate Lip-Dub production EVER, put on by damn near the entire city of Grand Rapids, Michigan:
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