It’s that time of year – engagement season. According to Wedding Wire, “engagement season” refers to the time between Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day when many partners decide to pop the question to their significant other. Since many people spend the winter holidays with loved ones, these winter months are the perfect time to get engaged. But before you get down on one knee with a timeless engagement ring, here are 9 tips to keep in mind before you propose.
- Hire a Photographer – What better way to make the moment extra special than by hiring a photographer? A photographer will be able to capture every special moment from before, during and after your proposal. They’ll capture your genuine nervousness and your fiancé’s happy tears as the moment is happening. Those photos will be priceless when you look back on them in the future. Not sure of where to find a great engagement photo shoot photographer? That brings us to our next proposal tip.
- Hire a Proposal Planner – Planning a proposal can be stressful. Why not leave the planning to professionals that do this day in day out? There are plenty of proposal planners out there, so do your research and find ones that are in your area to help you with your special proposal. They may have connections or special discounts related to proposal vendors like photographers, musicians, florists and so on.
- Surprise Them and Set the Scene – Whatever you do, don’t tell your soon-to-be fiancé that you’ll be proposing to them. It will ruin the magic and the surprise if they know the proposal is coming. When you’re planning your proposal, start at the beginning.
Think about how you met them. Did you meet them back in high school or college? Perhaps you can propose near your high school or your college to remember those times with nostalgia and see how you two came full circle. Maybe you met the good ol’ modern way through a dating app. Have fun with that and play into how swiping right on each other led to the best thing that ever happened for you two. A proposal planner can help incorporate your story into your moment.
- Consider Their Personality – When considering how you want to propose to your partner, think about their personality. Would they want a loud and flashy proposal with all of their family and friends watching and cheering you on? Would they prefer something more intimate where it’s just the two of you?
- Buy the Ring – If you haven’t already, you should buy the ring you plan to propose with. There are different ways of getting an idea of your partner’s style of an engagement ring without revealing that you’ll be proposing to them. If they’re on social media, you can check their likes and see if they’ve been looking at rings or jewelry. You can get a sense of their interests and styles.
Take a look at their closet. Are they more conservative and would want something traditional? Are they unique and trendy, and would they want a ring that reflects their fun personality, such as unique pear shaped engagement rings that are as precious as they are?
- Hiding the Ring – Now that you’ve purchased and insured your ring until the day comes where you pop the question, you’ll need to be clever about hiding the engagement ring. Especially if you two live together, you need to hide in a place where your partner won’t find it.
- Think about Your Proposal Speech – You’ve hired the photographer and proposal planner. You’ve thought about how you want to propose to them, and the ring is sitting inside of a tube sock in your drawer. “Will you marry me?” seems to the point, but it just doesn’t suffice. How do you capture in words how much this person means to you and all the reasons you want to marry them? That’s why you should really sit and think about your proposal speech. Write something down so you don’t blank during the moment!
- Talk to Their Family and Close Friends – Asking for your partner’s hand in marriage seems old school, but it’s an enduring tradition, like marriage, for a reason. If they’re close to their parents, you’ll want to notify them that you love their offspring so much that you want to spend the rest of your life together, including your future in-laws.
Perhaps your partner is very close to their friends? According to the Knot, the average wedding has 131 guests, so you don’t have to, nor should you, tell their entire posse of over 100 people that will end up at your wedding that you plan on proposing in advance.
Before you approach their family and friends, make sure that you and your partner have marriage on the mind. If one of you has been expressing hesitancy about taking it to the next step in your relationship, or just doesn’t seem invested enough for marriage right now, now might not be the best time. Gauge the reaction of their friends and family when you inform them of your plans.
Another way to read the temperature of your partner’s interest in marriage is to bring up an actual or theoretical engagement of a friend, acquaintance or family member of yours. Depending on how your partner reacts, this could lead to an honest conversation about where you and your partner stand on the idea of marriage.
- Plan a Post-Engagement Celebration – Enlist the help of her family and friends on planning the post-engagement celebration. This will take the stress off you and your fiancé so that you two can soak in that blissful engagement glow.
With all 9 of these proposal tips in mind, you’re sure to knock your partner off their feet. The most important thing is that you propose with your most excited and authentic self. Capture the moment and embrace it because the rest of your lives together starts now.