I’m reading a novel in which the hero seems to be accumulating a lot of partners, and somehow marriage is bandied about quite a bit among the characters, even the secondary characters. The interesting thing about a marriage proposal in a romance novel is that you, as the reader, pretty much know it’s going to happen. Most likely, especially in a historical set against the marriage-hunting Season in London, the hero and heroine, they’re gonna get hitched. It’s a foregone conclusion. But often the marriage proposal isn’t so much a dramatic event. In an historical, it’s more accurately described as a negotiation than a declaration of romance and nookie, but even in contemporaries, I haven’t come across a proposal that really impacts the story. Like I said, we all know it’s going to happen eventually.
In real life, proposals run the gamut from big screen proposals at baseball games, mega huge appearances on the JumboTron in Times Square, to intimate restaurant gatherings or maybe even sticking the diamond ring in the butter in the fridge. (Generally I recommend against putting diamonds in food. What if someone doesn’t look before they eat? You’ll be toilet fishing for days.)
In my real life, Hubby proposed to me on my very favorite beach, as a total surprise, and then took me to the Short Hills Hilton (a very very nice Hilton) for the night. He’d packed my bag and everything, and with our roommate, who was the manager at the time, planned the entire evening, even selected some clothes for me and remembered my hairbrush, without my suspecting a thing. I’m still to this day impressed.
But in a romance novel, the proposal isn’t as big a deal as in the real world. You don’t see the hero agonizing over it much, and it’s usually not even a major plot point in a contemporary – at least, not the ones I’ve read.
What’s your memorable proposal – real life AND in a novel you’ve read? Is there a proposal method out there that is, without exception, unromantic?
Oh let me see, My favorite proposal, the one that had me saying “Whoo who! way to go!” Was the proposal of Rourke to Eve Dallas. (JD Robb’s In Death series)
The emotional struggle of both characters regarding comimtment had me rooting for them through several books. Robb(erts)had me sweating and swearing the whole time!
Note to self: Dig out those first books of the series and re-read them.
Oh! Idea for a future article: What’s on your keeper shelf?
My own proposal was, well i’ll have to say was not romantic at all. No Beaches or sunsets. Just me and my now husband of 14 years listening to The Cult in my teenage bedroom.
Him: “We should get married somday.” Me: “For real?”
Him: “Yeah.”
Me: “Okay then.”
Five years later I received my engagement ring in the parking lot of the 7-11.
Him: “Here, I was trying to find some clever way to give this to you but I could’nt come up with anything.”
Me: “Awwwww!” ( I really did think it was cute.)
I think Mr. Darcy wins for my favourite book-proposal. Both times. I mean, the first time you’re just picturing it and making the face most often seen after a guy takes a hit in the ‘nads because you know what’s coming and Darcy’s just so oblivious to the fact that he’s an ass at the moment. And then the second proposal is rather spur-of-the-moment and natural. Most proposals in romances lately seem to be marriages of convenience because the author apparently can’t bear the thought of a heroine willingly engaging in premarital sex, no matter if it’s historical or contemporary. (Well, semi-contemporary. The modern romances with marriages of convenience that I’ve read seem to be from the late 80s to mid-90s and it’s usually some squicky millionaire boss/poor but charmingly naive secretary set-up.)
I just read Mistress of Rossmor by Marianne Willman, which, *shrug*. The hero and heroine got locked in some old monastary overnight so he married her to save her reputation and also to harness her psychic gifts for his personal research. Then it turns out it wasn’t a proper marriage ceremony because the guy officiating wasn’t really a priest and it was very very awkward.
My family seems to have poorly-done proposals as a recurring trait. My dad proposed three times to my mother before she accepted, I think. She said she was too young to get married. When she finally said yes and did marry him, she was 20, so I shudder to think when he first asked her. Probably when they were highschool sweethearts or something.
When my uncle proposed to my aunt (my mum’s sister,) he took her out to the beach at night and stuck the ring in a box of Crackerjack. She dropped the ring on the beach and they had to turn on the car’s headlights and muck around in the rocks and other beachy detrius until they found it. The bloom was kind of off the rose by then.
One of my favorite marriage proposal scenes is in Slightly Dangerous by Mary Balogh. In the first proposal, she rejects him because of the very prosaic and off-handed way he proposes to her, and in the second she takes all the wind out of his sails after he’s carefully crafted his proposal. I liked the way the heroine kept catching the hero off-guard.
My husband of 30 years proposed on the Jewish holiday of Purim. It’s a holiday known for excess consumption of liquor, which meant the next day we could wake up, sober, and look at each other and say “I agreed to do what last night? In front of 300 people?”
But after he asked me, he was sober enough to call my father and ask his permission, which I thought was old-fashioned and sweet.
SB Sarah – I still haven’t had the pleasure of enjoying the Short Hills Hilton. I hear they have a great spa.
My husband and I were one of those foregone conclusions. Within a couple of months of meeting him, I knew he was the one and so did he, so I told him he had to surprise me when we got engaged. To make things even more difficult, I also knew it would most likely be in October (past the requisite one year of dating – his requirement, not mine). Well, surprise me he did. He got his parents out on a golf course (!) ahead of us and had them hide the ring in the cup of the 9th hole. I pulled the flag and there was a box…
I was so happy I was crying. Then, instead of asking me directly, he ended up telling me that I had to give him a definitive answer since an engagement is a legally binding contract (thank goodness he’s now a non-practicing lawyer). When I said yes, he bent me over his arm, kissed the daylights out of me…and his parents jumped out of the bushes and started screaming with excitement, which slightly killed the moment.
Luckily, the moment didn’t end there. He had gotten tickets to The Scarlet Pimpernel on Broadway (perfectly romantic for an engagement) and we had dinner beforehand at Ruth’s Cris. All in all, he managed to do a fantastic and romantic job, right under my nose!
As far as books go, I seem to remember more of the bad, or non- proposals rather than any good ones. There are a lot of foregone conclusions that just end in a marrige scene in an epilogue after the hero and heroine profess their love for each other. It’s hard to get that romantic moment down without it seeming cheesy. I think the realistic ones are cheesy, even mine.
Ever since he was 12, way before we started going out, my husband knew he was going to propose to his future wife on top of a specific mountain in the Adirondack Mountains in NY.
All unsuspecting, I went on a 10 day canoe trip with him to the ADKs, after going out with him for 4 years (we started when I was 16). We have a fabulous trip—always a good thing, because traveling can bring out the worst in people—and we plan to climb the mountain the last day. That night it poured. Poured and poured and poured and didn’t stop. And, apparently, this was not the kind of mountain you climbed in the rain. So I got proposed to in the mud by the lake after we’d packed the car with plans to spend the day in Lake Placid. He knelt down in the mud and gave me my ring. It was a complete surprise.
He said he had actually considered waiting until next year so we could climb his mountain, but couldn’t handle the stress. We finally got to go up the mountain I think 4 or 5 years later.
As for proposals in books, Jayne Ann Krentz’s book that starts with the H/H having sex makes an incredibly big deal about the proposal—it was almost the tension of the story. Can’t remember title of book, sorry.
I think Georgette Heyer does a wonderful job in “Venetia.” Some of her other proposals, though, esp. “The Grand Sophy” and “Frederica,” leave a lot to be desired.
I prefer the books where the struggle isn’t about the proposal, but about the admission of love, where the proposal is offhand after love has been admitted all around.
My husband and I had been talking about marriage after only two months of dating, roughly He was from England and I was only going to be there for school until June – it was do or die. We decided that marriage was a better option than breaking up or conducting some terrible long-term relationship. But our courtship was so quick that my future m-i-l assumed I was pregnant! We went ring shopping some weeks later and the new shoes we each bought (Doc Martens) were more expensive than our wedding rings. My engagement ring was slightly more pricey because of the little tiny tiny diamond (I was 20 – what could we afford??), but we joked that we should really exchange shoes at the wedding because they were worth more!
It’s an interesting question tho, about the proposals. One would think they should feature more prominantly, but maybe the ceremony of “will you marry me” is not what we, as readers, are after. We are privy to the emotional struggles all along the length of characters’ courtships, so the cheesy finale might be over-shadowed by the other benefits of a novel. I would much rather read their internal dialogues – all those mushy things we hardly ever say aloud, a glance into the world of thought – than go over the same ceremonial territory we see ad nauseum in film, etc. Marriage is, for the most part, foregone, so it’s not as essential to the telling of a story.
But yes, I do love to read Darcy squirm in his first proposal. Just knowing that he wants her SO BADLY and she hates him SO MUCH and he has NO IDEA what’s coming when he finishes his declaration. Quality!
(I didn’t mean “long-term” relationship but “long distance.” The long-term part is alive and well.)
My favorite proposal isn’t in a romance book but in one of Mercedes Lackey’s FreeBards books. After the couple has sex, the male spends the next two chapters whining at her to marry him. Proposal by annoyance. It could work.
Before we were married, my future wife and I would take each other out to a pretty decent restaurant (different each time) on each other’s birthdays. So when I said it would be black tie/full-length dress, and we’d be getting a lift to the restaurant from a friend rather than taking the tube, she wasn’t particularly fazed.
Being dropped off in front of the Ritz impressed her, and the attentiveness of the service even more so. And then I produced a ring (made to my design, on the basis of stones I knew she wanted – garnets and seed pearls) between the main course and the dessert, and the band, as if seeing what was happening, broke into A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square. All in all a very succesful evening.
In fiction I don’t think that Lord Peter Wimsey’s proposal in Gaudy Night can be beaten. Under Hertford College’s bridge of sighs he asks “Placetne, magistra?” and she responds “Placet.” What more does one need?
I proposed to my spouse and I didn’t want a ring because I’m very untraditional. It wasn’t in any way romantic in the standard sense, but it was perfect for both of us.
My favorite proposal in a romance book is when Colin proposes to Penelope in Romancing Mister Bridgerton and she falls out of the carriage onto her face. The Mister Darcy proposals are my second favorites.
AW, these are some sweet stories!
I’m right there with Miri-I am on the 3rd J.D. Robb book and LOVE Eve and Roarke, the hero and heroine. Roarke’s proposal surpised me as much as it did the character Eve, but it was so perfect for them and it felt natural despite the odd circumstances.
My own proposal was at my favorite restoraunt, Paradise Cove. We had talked a little, so I had a feeling this was It. But he tried sooo hard to keep me from knowing that I couldn’t disappoint him. It was just perfect-alone on the dark beach, standing under a lone spotlight (so I could see the sparkle he was so proud of), just the two of us and the ocean. His beeline for the bar would have tipped me off anyway!
Also, seeing I’m a sucker for a hero in pain, Lord Peter’s other proposal [by letter] from Gaudy Night. It starts ‘Dear Harriet, I send in my demand notes with the brutal regularity of the income-tax commissioners; and probably you say when you see the envelopes ‘Oh, God! I know what this is.’ The only difference is that, some time or other, one has to take notice of the income tax.’
Sigh.
I’m pretty sure I was never properly proposed to, though my dh did ask my father’s permission. Went to ask him, didn’t come back. Tracked them down an hour later, to find my dh’s eyes glazed over as my father told stories of his boyhood. I came into the study mid-story and my dad just rambled on. Several months later, when he’d finished reminiscing, my dad smiled benignly at me, and told me they’d decided – They Had Decided! – it wasn’t a good idea for me to get engaged right now. It was the Easter before my finals, and my dad thought an engagement might Distract Me. [It’s a formality Daddy, you don’t actually have any say ….]
Girl in our church always loved a certain beach, so when she was visiting home, her boyfriend flew over in secret, and arranged for her mum to send her to walk the dog on this beach after Sunday lunch. Then he emerged from the sand dunes, carrying flowers, and proposed. I thought that was lovely.
Though not exactly a proposal, I looove the scene in Crusie’s “Bet Me” where Bonnie talks about Roger proposing, and when Min doubts her she calls him over ans asks if he intends to. He goes on about how he indeed will and is waiting for their one month anniversary. I laughed so hard at their adorably point-blank way of handling it.
My own was far from romantic but still nice. DH and I had already picked out the ring a month before, and I didn’t know yet if it had arrived, but I figured not since Valentine’s Day and our 6-month anniversary (yeah, we moved fast but it’s certainly worked out well) had passed in the past week, both seemingly fine dates to propose. Post coital cuddling had me questioning if he had even gotten the ring yet, and he reached under his bed and proposed on one knee, naked of course. I or course told his conservative mother something slightly cleaner since she still insists we are celibate…
My ex-fiance proposed on the spur of the moment…after giving this speech about how his teeth were going to fall out. (He had genetically worse teeth than me, even.) I was still sitting there thinking “Ew,” when he dropped the second bomb.
No, I don’t know what I was thinking.
My husband proposed to me while I was covered in sweat and recovering from a very athletic act…The birth of our daughter.
He stood next to my bed and proposed as the nurse was washing and wrapping her up. I only vaguely remember it.
Speaking of when proposals go bad, today’s “Smoking Gun” details a 2006 lawsuit where in an arranged marriage the bride was too ugly. Poor girl:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0706061uglybride1.html?link=rssfeed
I had an interesting (if weirdly unromantic) trip to the altar; you can check it out here if you’re inclined:
http://yaparanormal.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_yaparanormal_archive.html
Thirteen years and two kids later, it seems weird that I was once totally obsessed with getting a ring on my finger. That, and getting published. I guess they both worked out: after a fashion. 😉
My husband proposed to me by getting two friends to dress up in a cow suit with a sign on their “back” that said “Marry me.”
You see, I told him about the “Simpsons” episode where Lisa sees her future marriage proposal, which features a cow, and I jokingly told my then-boyfriend that I expected nothing less.
I thought he knew I was joking. Alas! Thankfully, it was at a very nice piano bar in a very nice restaurant, so the pianist obliged by switching to a romantic tune once he realized what was going down, and we were feted with champagne afterward. And we had some friends with us to celebrate! It was memorable and quite romantic, in its way.
I owe my life to the U.S. Postal System.
My parents met on a double date with other people—just like Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher in When Harry Met Sally—and within a few weeks decided to get married, right before he was shipping out to Alaska for his Air Force overseas tour (AK was overseas back then). My grandparents said no way.
So my dad mailed her an engagement ring from Alaska. By the time it got to her, she had started dating someone else, so she sent it back. Undaunted, he mailed it again, and this time she kept it, having spurned the loser at home.
These days no one would send a diamond ring without mega-insurance and FedEx extra tracking protection, etc., but the good ol’ USPS came through for them.
Jeri, that’s so amazing you should say that! My mom stood up to her mother exactly once in her life: when she got the ring from my dad. She walked in, a giddy teenager (she was only 20 when she married) and showed it to her mom (who was, rest her soul, an extremely unpleasant alcoholic bigot) who said, “You can just give that back to him RIGHT NOW, missy.” And my demure, soft-spoken mother said coolly, “If the ring goes. I. Go.” Boom. End of discussion. (Needless to say, my father never had would you would call a warm, loving relationship with his mother-in-law.) But I often think that if she hadn’t stood up to her mother that one time, yours truly wouldn’t be here (what a loss to the world!).
Go, MJD’s mom! True love never waits, despite what that other slogan says.
I figure my grandparents’ meddling gave my mom extra time to play the field and made my dad appreciate her more in the long run. He was a charming man and probably thought no one would refuse him anything.
Romances are full of repeated proposals—when the proposer isn’t worthy the first time around and has to prove himself, a la Mr. Darcy.
Or herself. I’d like to see a romance where the woman proposes. Anyone know of one?
Mr. Darcy all the way. I love that first obnoxious proposal so much, especially as done by Colin Firth.
If you haven’t read his interview on the subject, you should… his inner motivation for the scene actually comes across, and I now have an excuse why such smarminess turns me on.
Nerdiest proposal ever:
Intern teacher at my old highschool was at a spirit assembly (I guess you could call it a pep rally,) and they told her they had a surprise for her and they’d flown her boyfriend in from Golden, (to Vancouver Island,) and he came in in a tux with a bunch of flowers and made a speech that would tug at the heartstrings while the student council held up letters to spell out the proposal of marriage.
Neeeeeerds.
I would feel bad about blogwhoring my proposal story, except (1) I’m not the first person to do it, and (2) it really is thoroughly unromantic.
Here it is.
Nice pic of my wife in her wedding dress, too 😉
I knew my (then future) husband was going to propose. I’d known all day. He knew I knew. He’d traveled some distance to get the ring, and I knew all about it (we only had one car, and he told me why he needed it that day).
He came back from his trip. I was sitting on the couch, reading. He kissed me hello. We watched some TV. Had some dinner. He hadn’t said ANYTHING. It was driving me crazy.
Finally, he sat next to me on the couch and said, “I’d given up hope. I didn’t think it was possible to find someone who was both a friend and a lover. An intellectual equal. You make me a better person. Will you marry me?” I burst into tears about halfway through the speech. He started to cry too. Eventually, he got the ring on my finger and we called our families. (It took him so long to speak because he was trying to figure out what to say.)
My brother, on the other hand, took my sister-in-law completely by surprise. They’d been together for ten years. He spent a year saving up for the ring. He went to diamond school so he could select the stone. He designed the ring himself. He sat on the damn thing for three months once it was paid for trying to find the right moment. It kept not happening. Their very busy lives just kept getting in the way. Finally, as she was planning yet another crazybusy Saturday, he said, “Dude, hold on. Stay there for just a second.” He went into their bedroom, pulled the ring out of its hiding place, went back out to the living room and got down on one knee in front of the Saturday morning cartoons and proposed.
My favorite fictional proposal? I have 2:
A) Peter Wimsey’s to Harriet Vane at the end of Gaudy Night. Actually, all of his proposals to her, now that I think of it.
B) Freddy’s proposal to Kitty at the end of Cotillion by Georgette Heyer
495, Washington Beltway, University Blvd south exit (Maryland). He was driving. A moving experience.
Janet
My favorite marriage proposal is in SEP’s This Heart Of Mine where Kevin throws Molly in the lake to give her the Great Love Story like her sister’s (Phoebe in It Had To Be You).
Darcy’s and Roarke’s are right up there too though.
For my personal life, I said no the first time my husband asked me to marry him. We’d only known each other 4 months. Luckily, he didn’t give up. I said yes the second time and we picked out a ring but couldn’t afford to buy it—being poor college students. He said he’d get it with his tax refund in April.
He somehow got it early and surprised me at his grandparent’s 40th anniversary party. He convinced me to go for a walk even though it was cold and I was in a dress and heels. He knelt down in the snow by a river in his hometown. It was sweet—cold, but sweet. We’ve been married 13 yrs now.
My fella proposed to me in one of those prosaic ways. We were college students, I lived a Long Way Away, and he lived in the town with the airport, so I always spent the night in his parents’ den before I caught the plane home. And we were hanging out there one night—he said “I think we ought to get married.” I said okay, and that was pretty much it. We went to get the ring together—he wasn’t about to go get anything that important without my input. (He just gave the s-i-l advice when house-hunting without the daughter—Don’t buy anything important without your wife’s input. It just isn’t safe—er, smart.) We graduated college a semester early, and got married thirty years ago this past April. (We were mere babies at the time. 😉 )
In books—nothing spectacular comes to mind, actually—I’ve enjoyed them all. And I’m enjoying all these stories.
(My first post was eaten! Woe! I had actually managed to be articulate. Damn. Oh, well. Here’s my best reproduction.)
In fiction I don’t think that Lord Peter Wimsey’s proposal in Gaudy Night can be beaten. Under Hertford College’s bridge of sighs he asks “Placetne, magistra?†and she responds “Placet.†What more does one need?
True! That is a wonderful scene, Stephen. However, like the ladies here who enjoyed Darcy’s unsuccessful proposal as much or more than his successful one, I have to say that all of the proposals prior to Harriet’s acceptance are, taken together, almost better than that final one. Particularly the telegram in Latin and this scene:
Such heartbreaking constancy. He waits for her for four (or was it five?) years. And all that waiting makes Harriet’s agreement all the sweeter in the end, imo.
My fiance proposed on the last day of the subway strike this past December, in his kitchen. He put the ring in a pot. Staring at the ring, I suddenly felt sick to my stomach in an “Oh God, it this really happening?” kind of way. Ten minutes later I was completely ecstatic, running around the apartment, on the phone, trying to pack to go to my parents for Christmas, to go to Mexico, to go to a hotel with him for the night.
Fiction-wise, it’s not exactly a proposal, but Fredrick Wentworth’s letter is the best declaration of love committed to print. And Knightly’s “you have bourne it as no other woman in England would ahve bourne it” isn’t half bad either. And I used to have a huge thing for Phillip Ammond’s proposal(s) to Elnora Comstock in Girl of the Limberlost.
Off to read more Dorothy L Sayers