Step Your Fucking Game up, People

Deciding to make a lifelong commitment to someone is a huge deal and should not be taken lightly, so fucking congrats to you and yours. However, a thing you should know right off the bat is shit’s going to get fucking stressful. There is no way around it. Capitalism has taken over this occasion and the sooner you realize it’s not all going to be a fairy tale, the better (whether the stress comes from seeing your debt rising or the fact that you are going to have to have hard conversations with your family, i.e. guest list). Shit is going to get real, and it is going to get real fast. So my advice to you is take every chance you have to celebrate and celebrate big. And the first and obvious celebration is the proposal.

Your proposal should be meaningful, surprising, and a huge fucking fiesta. But in order for you to obtain this great achievement, you’re definitely going to have to follow a few guidelines. The following are a couple of things to think about when getting lit with your proposal.

The first thing you need to do is get hella creative. Expand your mind and think of things that would totally be outside your comfort zone. Unless there is definite meaning, like a magical sexual encounter in the bathroom of a big game (kidding), please, please, please don’t propose at a sporting event. The best thing to do is to take all the cliché proposals you’ve heard, write them down, study the list, and burn the shit out of it. Now, I know what you’re thinking. It shouldn’t matter what I do because the fact that I am proposing and making this commitment in the first place is meaningful enough. I’m sorry but you couldn’t be more wrong. That mindset is cancerous and will undoubtedly make things even more chaotic in the long run. So what you need to do is ruminate on some interests that you and your better-half share and start brainstorming from there. Think meaningful and think big. For me and my significant other, it was traveling—more specifically, traveling to Barcelona, and that is where I started.

Now I’m not saying you have to break the bank and spend a lot of money, but just think outside the box (I searched for a while but eventually found round trip tickets to Madrid, Spain for less than $500/person from Chicago). One example off the top of my head could be if your significant other is heavy on family, communicate with your soon-to-be relatives and plan something for everyone to enjoy, maybe getting away to a family cabin or renting a house on a lake (keeping it all a surprise of course). Get them involved and share with them what you were thinking.

After taking some time to sift through your shitty ideas and coming to one that is going to be exciting for the both of you, the next thing you need to do is plan. Planning is going to take some time as you hash out all the details that are involved. For me, I had so many moving pieces—which included flights, Airbnb’s and homemade videoes—it took between three and four months to fully complete all of my planning. It also took this amount of time because I wanted to make sure that if something were to go wrong (something always does) that the major details (i.e. the flights, train tickets etc.) were 100 percent guaranteed and booked without any issues or concerns. But the idea is to give yourself enough time to be able to pay for everything and get everything situated to make you feel comfortable and less stressed.

Another reason to give yourself some leeway on timing is so that you are able to organize all the minute details that will be involved. This is something you do not want to overlook. The major details are obviously the most important but the smaller specifics are going to push this proposal into the epic arena. And you want fucking epic! If you are someone who stresses over the details like me, I would advise giving yourself another month of planning (I started planning in June and finished planning in September and I proposed in early November). The extra month and a half gave me more than enough time to make sure all the details were secured and ready to go.

Trust me when I say, making the proposal a big fucking deal is a big fucking deal. Sharing this moment with your significant other is something you will remember for the rest of your life so why not nail it out of the park? I remember my wife seconds before our proposal; she was rolling her large ass suitcase up a Spanish street in the middle of the night right in front of the Sagrada Familia. I will never, ever forget her beautiful, smiling face. There are very few moments in one’s lifetime that you can vividly remember every time you think about it. And for me, that is one of them, which is something I would have never received if I didn’t step my fucking game up.

***If you are stuck with your conception and are in need of help, please reach out to me as I will be more than willing to assist in any way possible, as well as if you are interested in hearing how my proposal went down.