After hearing about Oliver's proposal (to Theresa, of course!) and remembering the stories I've heard from other people (Ken and Bettina, Huston and Ivy, Dan and Su), I've started noticing a trend: they're made when couples go on trips together or out on special occasions.
I realize that's not exactly a startling revelation, but it did get me thinking about the type of proposal I'd like to receive. (Guess that shows I've got a girly/sentimental side to me after all, since I'm still 95% sure I'm not going to get married at all.) As lovely and thoughtful as all of the proposals I've heard about have sounded, personally, I think I'd like a proposal to come during an ordinary, maybe even mundane event/task.
See, if it came in the middle of something normal/routine, the ordinariness of the event/task would be transformed into something special. Just think, if you were proposed to in the middle of making, let's say, a salad, wouldn't you thereafter associate the happy memory of your engagement with making a salad? I think that would be a wonderful gift to have, on top of the proposal itself.
Another thing I noticed is that proposals are generally made when the couple is off alone somewhere together. It makes perfect sense, of course, but again, I think it'd be nice to be able to share the experience with family or close friends.
That idea I think I got from reading the Christie Miller series (by Robin Jones Gunn) in which Todd proposed to Christie while they and a whole group of friends were sitting in the cafe of a bookshop. Everyone was going through a bag of leftover candy hearts, making silly sentences with them &etc., and Todd pulled out three "Marry Me" hearts and placed them in front of Christie. He repeated something he'd told her before "Once it's spoken three times, it's established. Forever" and then got down on one knee and proposed. At first no one realized what was going on because they were involved in their own conversations and the candy hearts, but after they saw Todd kneeling and then the candy hearts, they figured things out.
I think that scene was really appealing to me because the proposal was both private and...communal, for lack of a better word. The two were surrounded by their friends during the proposal, so their friends were almost a part of it, in a way. But at the same time, only the two of them were involved and aware when he proposed, so it's not like he had the message flashed on the jumbotron at a game for all the world to spectate. My preference, I guess is to carve out that private, personal time in the midst of loved ones, rather than going away to be alone.
But of course, that's just what I'm thinking I'd prefer; I'm not saying against romantic getaway proposals at all--hearing about them is lovely. And I'm still planning on staying single anyway.
