He Said/She Said: A Bookstore Proposal

This is so sweet! I love the idea of the ring hiding in the book! My fiance Nate proposed on mother’s day (May 2018) which has been a really hard day for me for the past eight years since my mom passed away. The only thing we had planned that day was to see a movie. At one point during the day, Nate announced that he had made my favorite dish: homemade pasta with parsley, lemon and garlic. He even came home from the grocery store with a pretty potted plant. I hadn’t noticed that he was doing nice little things for me throughout the day, mostly because I was focused on missing my mom. After I had finished showering and getting ready, I came downstairs and Nate came up to me, kind of out-of-the-blue and started telling me how much he loves me and how happy I make him. He then said he wanted to do something special on mother’s day because he knows how hard of a day it is for me and rather than be sad every year on mother’s day, he wanted me to be happy. Then everything was a blur and he got down on his knee and proposed! This past mother’s day, I still thought of my mom and missed her as I always do, but I was also able to feel happy and grateful to be getting married to such a special guy!

Love this!!
I unfortunately barely gave my boyfriend of eight years the chance to come up with something sweet like this. Tired of waiting for him, I planned us a trip to Maui and told him that he could choose any of the five days of our visit to propose to me.
When we were packing for the trip the night before, he told me to pack a nice outfit because he made dinner reservations for the last night of our trip. I didn’t say anything, but I was so disappointed that he was planning on proposing to me in a generic way at dinner. (Yes, I am the worst.)
But you guys! He actually proposed at the top of the Waihee Ridge Trail completely unexpectedly on day three of our trip! It was perfect. He said that he knew I would hate the dinner proposal and he did it to throw me off the scent.

This is so sweet! It’s so lovely to read the full story here after seeing it on IG (my friends all know to send me anything cute book/romance related, hahaha). Congrats, Lauren and Tom!

My fiancé and I got engaged last fall. We’d started talking about marriage, and in one of our initial conversations, I had mentioned that I wanted a very simple, intimate proposal, something for just the two of us. He jokingly said, “So what I’m hearing is…you want me to build you a Rube-Goldberg machine.” I laughed and rolled my eyes and then, lo and behold, a year or so later, I came home to an apartment filled with flowers, candles, and a RUBE-GOLDBERG MACHINE! He used Command hooks to set up a whole pulley system around our apartment and managed to incorporate some of our favorite books in the set up that ultimately ended with him on one knee with a sign that said, “Marry Me, Simply.” It was the sweetest and most perfect proposal that made me laugh and cry and obviously, say yes :)

My husband proposed the morning of our 2 year anniversary. He had this whole plan and I almost ruined it by getting up to make coffee, he coaxed me back to bed and said he’d bring me some. He gave me this sweet speech and reached under the bed. I got mad because we don’t do anniversary presents. When he asked to marry him, I literally said “Are you fucking kidding me, is this really happening”. Clearly, his surprise plan worked and I said yes!

I love love love this story. I love to read, so a bookstore proposal sounds so romantic and lovely to me. I wouldn’t want it to be exactly like this one though: I don’t really like surprises (so some hints / conversations before would be appreciated), and I wouldn’t like it if a lot of other people were ‘in on it’. I’d prefer it if it were something between just me & my boyfriend (which I realise might be difficult in a public place, but still). I also find it a bit weird to read in the comment section that some people wait so long for their partner to propose. Don’t you talk about marriage / proposing etc? My parents even picked out the engagement ring together :) My mom said it was still a surprise: she didn’t know exactly when he was going to get down on one knee and use the ring! It ended up being in the pouring rain at midnight in Antwerp. Pretty romantic, I think. :)

I proposed to my boyfriend off the top of “Arthur’s Seat” in Edinburgh Scotland!
I had planned the trip months in advance, when one off day in spring I emailed my best -girlfriend, who I was visiting: I wanna propose – will you help me?
I went ring shopping with one of my girls here in the states- shipped it to here place, she delivered it via secrete purse-hand-off during a band practice while boyfriend was in the bathroom (it took so long for him to go!! ) . Then I had to HIDE A RING AND RINGBOX for a month- man that was the toughest part.
I got the ring to Scotland in a sock in a boot in my luggage.
Then on the last day I proposed that we hike this hill which I have always wanted to hike and BF announced – he’s tired, it’s been a long week and he wants to see a nice movie.
…….
Luckily my best most wonderful girlfriend manages to get us to a coffee shop, we espresso up and get to hiking! He stopped a few times on the way up & she uncharacteristically was just like – “here’s some Gatorade!! We’re gonna make it!! We’ll wait for you!!”, while I was all OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG.
At the top, she has boyfriend “show” her how to use his fancy camera to take a nice photo while I’m desperately trying to get the ring box out my the bag it’s in in my pocket before he turns back around. He didn’t notice a bit.
She then asks us to take a FUNNY PHOTO- MY NERVES!!!
The second photo, boyfriend goes to put his arm around me and I’m not there! I’ve dropped and the box is open and I can’t even remember the ask. He said yes.
I couldn’t have done it without her – it takes so many good humans to make a proposal happen, I felt so blessed and am now married to that sweet sweet guy who just wanted to see a movie.

We saw it when we got home :)

This is a super cute story and I am so happy for the couple. Personally I am SO glad my husband proposed to me while we were alone. It’s such an intimate moment, and he said some of the sweetest, kindest things to me ever in that moment – things I know he wouldn’t have said if there had been people around. I was a hot mess and I’d have ben mortified (and a annoyed!) if he had done it in front of family and friends and cameras. I fear that everyone feels everything needs to be documented in photos these days – it doesn’t. Take time each day to soak up those precious moments alone, together, without cameras or filters. You never know what magical thing may happen :)

Love proposal stories. We are getting married in a few weeks! We had talked about marriage before and he ended up proposing on the morning of our (11 year!) anniversary in our room while I was in pjs just before Christmas. He said we should exchange one gift early so I said fine and gave him a jumper. He put it on then came back with a shoe box. I was like great, I love shoes. Opened it up to find a ring box. No idea what he said or what I said. The ring was beautiful and not at all what I expected style wise. He had my best friend help him chose. It was lovely and low key. I would have freaked out at a very public proposal!

My now-husband proposed ten years ago two days before Christmas in Central Park. We were visiting my family and it was the first time he met all my siblings in person (I grew up in New York but moved to Australia). Little did I know he had already contacted my brother to arrange my ring while my sisters booked us into bridal appointments since I knew when the time came, that would be a milestone I’d have to do without them. Boy was I wrong! We spent the day in the city celebrating the sale of his house in the UK (He’s British) and his visa application being approved but all through our swanky lunch I just knew he was going to do it!
He proceeded to torture me with a loooong horse and carriage ride through the snow before walking down the Bow Bridge which – miraculously – was completely abandoned and got down on one knee. Then out the corner of my eye was a couple of backpackers who watched it all go down and offered to snap some photos for us. We got a limo home to Long Island where my siblings were waiting with champagne.
The absolute BEST part of it all was that until that very night, I completely forgot that I had told a friend years earlier how getting engaged in Central Park would be perfect. Somehow he just knew and it was hands-down one of the best nights of my life.

My now husband is an elementary school teacher and had just read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane to his students. He kept telling me how amazing it was and wanted to read it to me. So, like many books and magazines before, he read the whole thing aloud over many hours. Towards the end, he kept crying, and I kept crying. I at one point stopped and told him how much I loved how deeply the book touched him, and how I hoped our kids (which I didn’t know whether we would have, LOL!) would cry at books like him. He put the book down, wiped his face, and asked if I would marry him. We’re about to celebrate our 10th anniversary and will read the very same book aloud to our oldest child, now 7, this summer.

We were out in Clear Lake, MB camping which happens to be a dear spot to both of us for different reasons. We had a delicious dinner and then went into town for our nightly vacation icecream and to do some geocaching. We were walking down the gorgeous pier looking for the geocache (my fiance was manning the GPS) when he stopped beside a tree and said “OK! This is where it is! Start looking!”…. But I had found that geocache a few years before and knew we were about 50 feet away so I was like “ummm I think it’s over that was more”. But he insisted this is where it was. So for a couple of minutes I fake looked for it, wondering how I could nicely tell him he is wrong and that it’s more to the left. All of a sudden though my daughter comes out from behind a tree and says “Found it”! Then I was in shock and she gives me the container, SO excited and tells me to open it! I wanted her to open it though because she was 7 and that’s a really exciting thing for a 7 year old to open! We went back and forth a couple of times when she said mommy just open it!
Inside was a beautifully written poem :) I read it a couple of times, now thinking something funny was up then turned to my fiance to ask if he wrote it and he got down on one knee!
I was so shocked and had so many thoughts running through my mind that I can’t remember when one word he said haha I remember faintly hearing gasps of the public watching it happen and him asking if I liked the ring and just hugging him so hard but that is all :)

My husband and I got married in a little bookstore in Vermont! It was magical.

Years before my now husband proposed, he had won me a little plastic ring from a vending machine in the grocery store. Well I wore that plastic ring everyday for the next 2-3 years until it broke just before my 26th birthday. I jokingly told him he’ll have to get me a new ring! He got me a new ring alright!
We were at home, getting ready to go golfing, and he comes into the bedroom and told me he had another birthday present for me. He got down on one knee and handed me a small plastic egg (the same kind from the vending machines) with an engagement ring in it! We didn’t end up golfing that day!

My husband and I were randomly out for dinner at a nice sushi restaurant when we noticed a group of people setting up for a party, including a screen and a projector, in an open space near our booth. I was like, I KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING, OUR SUSHI IS LONG GONE BUT WE ARE NOT MOVING! Sure enough, the group “left” one guy alone, a girl showed up, and a homemade film started rolling. The guy had traveled throughout the state interviewing people from his girlfriend’s life – her grade school teacher, her high school swim coach, etc. – about how wonderful she is!!! At the end, he proposed, she said yes, and their family and friends rushed in. I had no idea who the couple were but it was surprisingly touching to witness!

Two years ago, in the middle of my spring exams for law school, and on the sixth anniversary of the day we met, Conner took us on a beautiful walk down memory lane and ended the night by asking me to spend my life with him. It was probably a six-hour extravaganza, but it began when he told me he’d found out about a “secret” Magnum ice cream pop-up shop somewhere in the city.

Apparently, Magnum had sent out clues as to how to find it, and, the stakes being delicious ice cream, I didn’t question it and jumped right into solving the clues, which led us downtown to Tompkins Square Park.

When we arrived and I didn’t see any ice cream shop, I asked Conner if maybe they’d closed, since it was already after 9 PM. He pulled us aside to “check on that.” Then, he pulled out a ring box (!) and asked me to “go on a treasure hunt with him,” opening to box to reveal… a slip of paper. He’d written a riddle on this paper that ultimately told me I’d been tricked: there was no ice cream pop-up. Instead, we were about to go re-visit all our early haunts from six years prior. The paper slip also had a clue, which led us to what used to be one of my favorite ice cream shops (because Conner knows he can’t just *tease* ice cream) in the West Village, although he’d forgotten that they’d permanently closed the year before. (Maybe he is an ice cream tease after all…)

There, though, Conner pulled out the ring box again and opened it to reveal…another clue! Throughout the night, he opened the box to reveal a clue five different times, leading us through the West Village park where we’d had our first kiss, to the restaurant where we spent our first New Years’, to Grand Central Station where we caught a train to White Plains one of our first, impromptu dates. Finally, though, we ended up at the corner of the nondescript building on 5th Avenue in which we’d first met six years ago (the clue leading here was an “audio clue”–Conner played a clip on his phone of The Script song that sings “back to the corner, where I first saw you…”).

I knew there weren’t any clues left when Conner pulled out the ring box again–this time with an actual ring in it!– got misty-eyed and descended to one knee to ask me to marry him. I said yes to the love of my life and a man walking by on the sidewalk shouted a single “whoo!”

We got married less than five months later!

We took a trip to hike across the floor of the grand canyon, but because I was practically dying by the end he decided not to do it. ( Poor guy carried it for a 9 hour hike, I’m sure nervous about when he should try… while I just kept worrying about rattlesnakes.)
But the next morning at the crack of dawn we drove until we couldn’t see one tourist and he asked as the sun came up over the canyon. It was beautiful <3

On vacation by the ocean, a patio to ourselves, day drinks in the sunshine and about two dozen oysters. We giddily talked about our future and I thought “I’ll always remember this conversation, this day”. The waitress said “I can’t let you go without one more!” and P moved a shell to reveal a ring in any oyster. Cue the waterworks (and blackout…apparently he got on one knee but I truly don’t remember!).

We’d been together for years and though we were building a life together, we had focused on the important topics: finances, location, beliefs, kids, traditions, etc. An engagement ring and romantic proposal weren’t on my radar, but one of my life’s greatest gifts was that sweet surprise! SO FUN.

My husband proposed at the Providence Athenaeum, the most wonderful and picturesque library, which happens to be one of my favorite places on earth. I thought we were going someplace else entirely, and the athenaeum was just a detour, but it turned out he booked a hotel in town and we spent a magical night in Providence. We didn’t get married there, but at our reception all of the place cards were old school library book cards, where we made up a book that each of our guests wrote (they were lots of inside jokes). Then each table had a book that was meaningful to us.

My hubs proposed on the Rockefeller Center ice rink right before Christmas. I was teetering on ice skates and gripping the sides the entire time he was skating around. I was miserable and annoyed but then he slid up on one knee. Thank god the ice skating was over after that.