Posted Tuesday, September 15, 2009 1:04 PM
We were in Nags Head, North Carolina, on vacation with my family. Mike wanted to be romantic and go watch the sunset on the sand dunes at Jockey's Ridge. He can be romantic, but this seemed like a little too much. When I stood up, Mike stayed kneeling. That’s when he popped the question. Randomly, there was a professional photographer there and we got these amazing photos.
Posted Tuesday, September 08, 2009 12:29 PM
On September 27, 2008, we were heading out from the Rainbow Bay Marina in Oahu preparing for a 100-foot lobster-fishing dive. I was the first one in the water and, since it had been a while since I’d last done it, I was quite nervous (nothing to do with the fact it was also shark season). We ventured downward and, for some reason, I was having a hard time equalizing and I felt like I kept getting stung, but it was tolerable. The last one to the bottom, I was trying to get my buoyancy under control when Steven handed me a small toy chest (a Pirates of the Caribbean replica). My very first thought was, Holy crap! You found something down here already? Jeez, you’re lucky, and handed it back to him. While holding it up to me, he opened the chest and pulled out a red sucker ring. My next thought: What in the world is that doing in there? (Yeah, I know I'm truly clueless sometimes.) Then he took this laminated paper out of his gear which read, “Samara...Will you marry me? Love, Steven. PS How do you like the ring?” OMG...how did I not get this? Since fifth grade, he has said he would propose with a sucker ring.
Posted Tuesday, September 01, 2009 12:50 PM
I went to California to visit my then-boyfriend for two weeks -- we were dating long-distance. He waited until the second to last day before I left to give me the biggest surprise of all.
When I woke up in the morning, I saw a big black gift bag filled with blue tissue paper beside the bed. I asked if it was for me and if I could open it. My boyfriend smiled and said yes. I then held back and said that he waited this long to give it to me, he must be waiting for the right time. So I resisted the pretty bag.
During the day, he took me to Laguna Beach because I love going to the beach. He then took me to Heisler Park to take pictures. For dinner, I had no clue where we were going. He just told me to dress up. We got into the car and I saw that he brought the gift bag with him. After a short drive, we ended up in a parking garage with a man in a gondola outfit waiting for us in the doorway. We followed him to the dock where a gorgeous white gondola with a wooden solarium waited for us called the Crystal Swan. I was so surprised I wanted to cry. It was the most romantic surprise I’d ever gotten, but I didn't know that there would be more.
We had a three-course meal on our two-hour sunset cruise in the private canals of Newport Beach. After the sun had set and we were finishing up our cheesecake, I heard a thud from under the gondola. It was a glass bottle that was thrown off a wedding charter. The gondolier turned the boat around and picked it up from the water. He handed it to me as a souvenir. I saw that there was a message inside and uncorked the bottle. As I was reading the message aloud, I was thinking to myself how romantic this was (believing it was from a wedding boat). I finally got to the bottom of the message, and I read, “Amy...will you marry me?”
I was just in shock. I froze and said OMG. I looked at my boyfriend and he began to smile nervously. I dropped the message. My heart was beating so fast. My boyfriend, stuttering nervously, gave a beautiful speech saying how this was meant to be. I was sitting there crying tears of joy. He made me believe that he hadn’t gotten my ring yet and that he got me a little something from Tiffany. Since our relationship was long-distance, we used all of our money to fly to see each other, so I didn't think buying a ring was even possible. He handed me the black bag with blue tissue. I saw that there was a box in a small bag in the big bag. I excitedly went straight to the box without taking anything out. It was the famous blue Tiffany box with a white bow on it. I opened it to find a velvet ring box inside. My boyfriend placed his hands over mine before I opened it, and he said, "Baby, I got you your ring." He got on his knee and opened the box. He asked, "So, Amy, will you make me the happiest man in the world tonight? Will you marry me?"
I was so surprised, I just nodded joyously and finally said YES! He caught me completely off-guard. When the gondola cruise ended, we took pictures together with the gondola and even snapped a shot of my fiance with the gondolier. Afterward, he took me to Pacific Park at Santa Monica Pier, which is where he took me the first time I visited him in California. It was the best and most romantic day of my life.
Posted Monday, August 24, 2009 2:42 PM
Justin and I met in high school and we've been dating for over five years.
Last fall (2008), I went away on an exchange program. I was so happy when he flew over to visit me for a week. It was during that time I really knew I wanted to be with him forever.
The proposal for us was never a huge secret. We talked about marriage and what it’d be like. When I got home, we went ring "looking." I fell in love with the first one I tried on. I had a hair appointment after that, and Justin, well, he just went away for the hour, and I never asked where he went!
We decided to look ahead until May before getting engaged. I would’ve graduated, and we’d be in Europe. It seemed like a perfect place to get engaged. We were going to be traveling with much of my family and family-friends. Despite the fact that it was no secret to me that he was going to propose, I was nervous and excited to go on the trip!
When you're traveling with 30 people, five minutes alone outside your hotel room is hard to come by. We traveled all through Central Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and the Czech Republic). It was practically a prewedding honeymoon! One of the places we visited was Engelberg, meaning Angel Mountain, in Switzerland. I'll admit, I couldn't take waiting anymore, so after dinner one evening, I suggested to Justin we go take a walk together. The town was so small and quiet. We walked along the streets, looking at the old buildings and the beautiful Alps in the background.
We found a park and Justin asked me if I thought the place was perfect. I said yes, and he took me over to a bench and sat me down. He got down on one knee and said, "Jennifer, I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?" Of course I said yes!
It may not have been a secret, but I couldn't have asked for a more perfect, more romantic proposal.
Posted Monday, August 17, 2009 12:37 PM
Jamie: We were down in New York visiting my family for the weekend. I was on vacation, and that was all I could think about.
Alec: Seriously, it was the first weekend in months that she wasn't checking my pockets and digging through my bags looking for the ring.
Jamie: So, Alec came up with this idea to go into Brooklyn on Saturday morning to go to the Botanical Gardens. I was like, "Brooklyn?! Why do we want to go all the way to Brooklyn to see flowers?!"
Alec: Yeah, I didn't count on how much you hated the NYC subway system.
Jamie: Well, he started going on about how the cherry blossoms were out and how it reminded him of DC. So I agreed. Ma (my grandma) pushed us out of the apartment early that morning to go catch a train so we’d have enough time at gardens.
Alec: She was great; she couldn't handle keeping the secret any longer and just wanted us out of the house!
Jamie: It took about an hour to get there, and by that time, the morning coffee was hitting both of us, so before stopping to see any flowers, we ran to try to find the bathroom.
Alec: Normally I’d say that part of the story isn’t relevant, but keep in mind that I had an engagement ring burning a whole in my pocket.
Jamie: After making it to the bathroom, Alec practically dragged me to go walk through the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden. It was a perfect day, 70 and sunny, not a cloud in the sky! There were people everywhere!
Alec: And when she says everywhere, she means EV-ER-Y-WHERE. Now, I had arranged to have a friend of a friend "tail" us in the gardens to take pictures, so I was more than a little anxious about finding her amidst the throng of people. Throughout the morning, I had been sneaking off to send and receive text messages scheming out exactly how she’d find us to take pictures.
Jamie: I had no idea he was doing all this at the time.
Alec: So, we were walking and walking and getting near the end of the path, and I still hadn’t found the right spot or the photographer, so I decided to go off-script. I had "coincidentally" brought a disposable camera with us.
Jamie: He handed the camera off to a young couple walking by and asked them to take a picture of us in front of this blossoming cherry tree. I prepared for the picture, trying to put my arm around him, when he fumbled with his pocket and said, "This might come as a surprise..." and got down on one knee.
Alec: Right in the middle of the path..
Jamie: ...and then everything was a blur -- all I saw was him down there, holding the most beautiful ring I’d ever seen.
Alec: I did actually say the words, "Jamie Leigh, will you marry me?" She snatched it out of my hands right away, but then handed it back to me saying, "You have to put it on my finger!"
Jamie: I don't know how he did it; my hands were shaking so fast!
Alec: People were walking by saying congratulations. I heard one woman say, "Hey, look, he's proposing!" One couple even told us to make sure we have lots of babies!
Jamie: And we have pictures of the whole thing!
Alec: Yes we do, both the surprise shots and some high-quality "posed" shots (we did eventually find our photographer friend).
Jamie: After that, we rushed off to a waiting car and driver to take us to lunch and a Broadway show. He even had champagne in the car and everything.
Alec: Yup, we did a Broadway show, a wonderful dinner with her family, and a night in the city at the Gramercy Park Hotel.
Jamie: And too much champagne.
Alec: Yeah, we couldn't get away from it.
Jamie: And that's our story.
Posted Friday, August 07, 2009 9:38 AM
On February 18, 2008, Brian came to Katie's second grade class to read a book, Bear's New Friend, to her students. Before reading he told her students that he had a couple of surprises for them. He gave them the first one, M&M’s, before reading. The second one, he explained, was one Ms. Spychalski didn't even know about.
After reading the book Brian began his proposal in front of Katie's class. He began telling her students that he has heard so much about each of them so he thought they should learn some more about him. Then Brian began sharing some of his favorite things in life; dogs, Carl's Ice Cream, The White Sox, Moonstruck Chocolate, looking at the stars, and going on vacation with Katie. He had a picture to go along with each little story that he passed around to the students (who were giggling like crazy).
Halfway through, one of Katie's students said, "He's going to mar..." and then covered his mouth. Katie thought about this for a second and decided Brian was being a huge nerd like he usually is and it was not going to happen right then.
Then Brian had Katie join him in the front and asked the kids what each of these things had in common...and being the 7-year-olds that they are, it took them a few minutes to excitedly figure it out: Brian and Katie were together in all of them. Brian took out his last picture, of their first date, and explained that since all of his favorite things in life included Ms. Spychalski that it only made sense that she was his favorite thing of all.
The next thing Katie knew, Brian was down on his knee asking her to marry him. All the students jumped up and were screaming. One leaned over Katie's shoulder and yelled, "HE WENT TO JARED!!!" An extremely shocked Katie jumped on Brian (while he was still partway down on his knee) and said yes!
Posted Monday, August 03, 2009 6:17 PM
My future in-laws own a cabin in Hillsville, Virginia, and every few weeks someone in the family would go up there to clean and do yard work. Ben and I, along with three of our friends (Daniel, Jordan, and Antonne), made plans to head up to Hillsville to do just that. About a week before we went, Ben told me that Daniel had been on Geocaching.com and had found that there was a geocache in Hillsville, right near the cabin!
(Note: "Geocaching" is a worldwide treasure hunt that uses GPS systems as the treasure map. You find the geocache, write your Geocaching.com username on the paper in it, and sometimes leave something for the next person to find.)
I got off of work at around 8:30 p.m., met up with Ben at his house, and then headed up to the cabin, where the others were waiting for us. When we got there, we unloaded the car and then talked about possibly going to find the geocache. The guys seemed anxious to go looking for it, and even though it was late and super-dark and I was tired from work, I was excited to go too! We got out our flashlights and headed for the woods.
According to the "directions," we were to follow the creek until we came to a barbed-wire fence, and then follow the fence to a rock face. The "geocache" was to be somewhere at the rock face. When we got there, we all used our flashlights to look around. I didn't have one, so I watched anxiously as Jordon climbed the rocks and the others shone their flashlights in all of the crevices. After a few minutes, Ben shouted that he had found it, and we all rushed over to where he was. He reached in a crevice, pulled out a pirate chest, and opened it. Inside, there were a bunch of coins...and a ring.
They had me so fooled into thinking that we were geocache hunting that my immediate reaction was: "WHO in the WORLD would leave a RING in a geocache??" But all of the sudden, Jordon and Daniel pulled out cameras and pointed them at me. I was confused as to what was going on, so I looked back to Ben, and he was on his knee with the ring in his hand. That was when it registered.
Posted Monday, July 27, 2009 3:30 PM
Ever since I was five years old, I wanted to get married at the Battery in Charleston, South Carolina. We saw a wedding there and I knew that I wanted to be just like that beautiful lady in the giant white dress!
My boyfriend and I had been dating for more than five years and we had been looking at rings, but he told me that he still wanted to wait a while to save up as much money as possible. A few weekends later, he asked me to go on a business day-trip to Charleston on behalf of his aunt. He picked me up early in the morning and we started the drive to Charleston (we live in Charlotte, so it wasn't too bad). When we finally got there, he took me straight to the Battery and up onto the bandstand. I was talking with a lady who was waiting for a tour and Scott seemed really antsy and nervous. All of a sudden, her eyes got huge and I turned around -- there was Scott on one knee, holding out a ring box! He said that he wasn't sure if we could get married down there, but he figured that a proposal was the next best thing! Of course, I said yes and just about passed out!
Then, out of nowhere, our parents pulled up! He had invited them along for the trip as another surprise, as if I could handle any more of those! They brought champagne and a whole Godiva chocolate cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory (my favorite!). We had a picnic in the park surrounded by azaleas in full bloom. I think it was the most beautiful day of my entire life!