Uhm… Will You Marry Me?
Big news! And no, it’s not that I finally seperated some of my advice section into "Guidance Space" for people who check out King Chill for recs and life advice. I am engaged! To celebrate my engagement, I’m dedicating 20 minutes to writing some advice for anyone else who wants to do a traditional engagement. Which is a lot less time than I spent planning last night’s event.
Most people do not do traditional engagements. When I asked my fiancee’s dad if he will allow me to marry her, he responded with confusion, saying that he’s never heard of someone asking the dad for permission. But I was raised on TV, which meant wanting a cutesy, traditional proposal. And after the event, my Latina love said to me, “It was like a movie. You even spoke in English! Like in the movies!” [Maybe learning more Spanish would have been nice for the guests, but I’m pot nerfect.]
Before I got engaged, I asked maybe a dozen married friends about their proposals. The most common answer was that it happened casually in a conversation, sometimes even in an email. “Our accountant told us we save $4,000 if we get married, so we went to the court house the next day.” Or: “Babe, if you want to move with me to this country, we got to get married yesterday.” “Ok, let’s do it.” How romantic! [/s] Only one friend told me about a wild engagement story involving a flash mob and choreography. That marriage lasted about five years. So advice #1: do not go over the top, because it’s cringe, expensive, likely to get messed up, and only 1% of people would even enjoy it.
Many also warned me not to do the thing in any sort of public setting unless I was sure she would want it. In my case, I just knew she’d enjoy having her parents present. But my partner is a Disney Princess, so I wasn’t afraid of some cheese and theaterics. I took a gamble with having our families there, in a private room.
I’m not that romantic, but when thinking of something more romantic than expensive flowers—or a bunch of dead plants as I think of it—I thought about the idea of bringing our families together. Living in a war zone, getting her family over would have been tough. And so I had to wait 6+ months for an opportunity for some of my family to meet with hers. Which leads to advice #2: if you want it to be memorable, wait for the right moment. Like finding the right person, the right date will be obvious when you see it. “If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.”
If it needs to be spelled out, advice #3: talk to your partner to get a sense of what sort of ring they want and if they would want the engagement to be in private. Again, most engagements are private, not at restaurants (like mine), ballgames, parks or around coworkers. Of all the attendees for mine, none had previously seen someone drop to one knee like I did. And we had some discussion about rings. My friends were right that she would NOT want a cool snake ring, despite that being the type Queen Victoria received from Prince Albert, and despite marriage itself having some constricting connotations. I’m glad I asked, because she definitely didn’t want a snake ring. I checked a few times to be sure. No snake ring. Not even a cool one. Got it.
Then comes the execution. Advice #4: have a plan. I knew I didn’t want to carry a ring around for months, and I didn’t want to hire a fancy photographer. I did want to sneakily persuade my partner to get her done up, which I mostly failed at. She was still wearing her coat while I started my speech. But since we’re simple, it worked. By the time I was ready to propose, I didn’t even think to let her take it off.
I am an experienced speech giver. I was not nervous up until moments before the speech. But I rushed it maybe five minutes too early. A few family members suggested “getting it over,” and I did not really care if a few people got the video playback. Which brings advice #5: be patient the day of, or just do it and not care if you say “uhm” and make some mistakes during the damn thing.
Since it was traditional, I had to drop to one knee, like an Israeli on the beach flirting with women trying to tan and check out the hunks playing Footvolley. My sister was the only one who gave me good advice here: advice #6: make sure you are looking directly at your partner, not the crowd or the camera, and keep your posture straight. Don’t slouch with your lean. And I also think it’s important to say “[First and last name], will you marry me,” not any nickname or shortcut.
In my case, my fiancee of 3 seconds was already crying and bent down to kiss me before I could even stand up. Advice #7: as soon as they say yes, stand up and put the ring on her finger, then kiss. That’s the picture perfect way of doing it. In our case, we were kissing in front of our fam while I was awkwardly holding the ring, still in the box, to the side. Oops! No biggie.
Personality beats pefection. In our case, I knew my partner won’t wear a super expensive ring every day, so I got a much, much cheaper ring. Each ring had meaning: the expensive toi et moi (two stones) was to symbolize union of two people, and the “cheap” Disney ring was because… well, she’s a Disney Princess and rose gold suits her personality. If anything happens to either ring, it’s not the end of the world. But it’s much easier to replace the Disney ring with an exact replica if it’s damaged, lost, or stolen, which may happen. I don’t expect to pass on the mass manufactured Disney ring to our children. Besides, I got to joke: “My girl is so special she gets 2 rings.”
In the end, there’s no perfect script and life happens. You can plan for years and still end up saying “uhm” or have your friend lose the ring the day of. That’s fine. The point isn’t perfection, it’s finding the right person who says yes. If things are meant to be, it will be perfect with all the imperfection. But no snake ring!
