The Marriage Proposal Doesn't Have To Be "Special" To Be Special

By Sandy Lo

For as long as I can remember, people have made a big deal about wedding proposals. The women in my life would discuss how their dream proposal would go. Scenarios like taking a hot air balloon ride or making a huge public scene of the proposal at a restaurant or sporting event were thrown around.

For me, I never put that much thought into how I wanted to be proposed to. I've seen and heard it all - in movies and on television and as a romance author, I have thought of it all, too. My characters have proposed in many different ways from an elaborate on-stage Grammy Award proposal (since many of my characters in the Dream Catchers series are celebrities) to a "mundane" intimate in-bed proposal ... as if a wedding proposal could ever be mundane!

That whole simple is boring or not good enough way of thinking is my point in writing this article!

Society is still teaching us to expect giant gestures from our partners to prove their love or worthiness, or whatever. While I love a grand gesture or effort put in by someone who cares about me, it's the expectation that is dangerous. Asking someone to marry you is a huge deal; a grand gesture in itself, and that should be good enough.

I mean prom-proposals are even a thing nowadays, so teenagers who are already nervous enough to ask someone out, have to come up with some over-the-top way to ask their potential date to the prom!

Back in February of this year, my boyfriend, Steven, proposed to me and it was absolutely perfect. I had known it was coming for a bit, but that didn't take away from the excitement or shock when he put that ring on my finger. Even though I knew it was coming, it was still surreal to hear that question come out of his mouth and to actually make things officially official.

Steven had been wracking his brain with ideas of how to ask me ever since he knew he wanted to marry me. He thought to do it at my milestone birthday party back in January so we'd be surrounded by my friends and our families, but he wasn't able to get the ring in time.

We then went to an escape room for his birthday in early February and the whole premise of the game we were in was to find a stolen ring. Not having known that would be our mission in advance, Steven was kicking himself and felt like he kept missing perfect opportunities.

My engagement ring wound up arriving in the mail the day after Valentine's Day, which Steven felt was another missed proposal opportunity. 😂 I knew that the ring was arriving on February 15th because we had looked at rings together when we started talking more seriously about marriage. We both fell in love with a sandstone wedding ring set and I saw that a package from the company who makes it would be arriving that day.

We had gone for a quick dinner and we checked the mail when we got home. We were both excited about the package arriving. I went into the bathroom while Steven opened the package to look at the ring set to make sure they looked how we expected them to. I came out of the bathroom, covering my eyes, saying how badly I wanted to see the ring set, but I wanted to wait until he proposed to see them.

Steven quickly said, "Okay, then how about this?"

He dropped down on one knee and held out the beautiful blue sandstone engagement ring to me. Tears immediately filled both of our eyes.

"Will you be my wife?" he asked.

"Of course," was my reply.

He slid the ring on my finger, got up and we kissed. It was pure perfection. Steven worried it wasn't a good enough proposal, but I found it incredibly romantic, sweet, and a little impulsive and impatient. That pretty much sums us up in a nutshell.

We're both impatient like children when it comes to things we're excited about and there is nothing more exciting to us than to get married to each other.

I wanted to share our proposal with the world in all of its simplicity and how full of love it was and hope it takes some of the pressure off anyone who is agonizing over proposing.

Find the right proposal for your relationship - maybe that is the big to-do for you. You might be a couple who loves an audience for big moments, or maybe it's just the two of you at home on a random Wednesday night and you can't stand to wait another moment to ask the love of your life to marry you. Either way, the moment will be perfect and special because it is yours.

That's the important part. The "how" you propose isn't important and I hope our world stops putting emphasis on things to do for show or social media or to compete with others, and starts putting focus on the strength of true love.

Author's Note: I realize how hypocritical I sound when I'm in fact writing an article to share how I was proposed to and I talk about how amazing my relationship is often in my writing and on social media... When I'm excited about something or someone, I love to shout about it. That's always been my nature. As a romance writer who had not found love until recently, I spent so much of my time writing fictional love stories that I wish I could find. Now that I have my own, I want to write about how I found my real-life romance story and I want to inspire others to hang onto hope that they can find theirs. ❤️

To view more of our engagement photos, watch our reel below!