A “Sleeping Beauty” photo shoot. A photo book hidden in a bookstore. A proposal three minutes after a fight.
There are many stories behind the question: Will you marry me?
As love stories continued to fill up the pages of The New York Times’s Weddings section in 2024, there was no shortage of creativity in how the question was asked. Many couples who wed this year got engaged during the supermoon or a hike at a national park or mountain range with a beautiful view. Others rented out arenas, ballrooms, or event spaces to surprise their lovers with personalized engagement parties.
Here are 10 thoughtful and memorable proposals from couples we featured in 2024.
99 Stones and One Big Surprise
On Oct. 1, 2013, after dinner at the Melting Pot restaurant in Albuquerque, Spencer Hatcher handed Crystal Carmichael a glass jar containing 99 clear stones.
Ms. Carmichael pulled a few out and read them out loud. Each stone recounted a memory from their year together in a relationship, including their first “fancy date” at a steakhouse, taking their children to a pumpkin patch, and buying their new house.
He then pulled one from his pocket and handed it to her. It read, “Getting engaged.” He took out a white gold and diamond ring, got down on one knee and proposed.
They were married at a chapel in Las Vegas on Jan. 2.
The Most Effective ‘Boo’ of His Life
In August 2023, Tiffany Langlinais and Michael Graves were watching the blue supermoon gleam above the water on a beach in Door County, Wis.
To their dismay, a large group of people nearby disturbed the peace by banging sticks on a massive piece of driftwood. “In my head, I was like, I don’t want this to be the background music for my proposal,” Mr. Graves said. So he shouted “boo,” nice and loud.
“It was the most effective boo of my life because they stopped immediately,” Mr. Graves said. He was finally able to propose as they watched the stars and listened to the waves.
On March 9, the two tied the knot in New Orleans.
A Trip to Their Favorite Bookstore
In March 2023, Zach Miller suggested to Jill Rafson that they stop by their favorite bookstore in Brooklyn Heights, Books Are Magic, before heading to Westchester, N.Y., to watch her 12-year-old goddaughter perform in “Aladdin Jr.”
When they walked into the store, Ms. Rafson asked what kind of book he was looking for. He said, “Fiction.”
Just as she was about to make fun of him for giving such a broad response, she spotted a book nestled among the fiction offerings that was unlike the others: It had their faces on it.
Mr. Miller had made a book of photos from their relationship and asked the booksellers to put it on the shelf. He picked it up and proposed with a ring that included the stone from her grandmother’s engagement ring. The rest, Ms. Rafson recalled, was a blur of enthusiastic nodding. They never made it to “Aladdin Jr.,” but they made a video call to Ms. Rafson’s goddaughter, who understood and was thrilled.
The Empty Party That Was a Curveball
Tina Survilla Lindell and Cesar Kuriyama have a friend, Nick Gray, who often hosts themed parties. Ms. Lindell received a newsletter email from Mr. Gray about a party he would be having in July 2023 at Caveat, a speakeasy-style bar and event space on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. (The couple had met on X, formerly known as Twitter, in March 2020 after Mr. Kuriyama saw a post that Ms. Lindell shared about Caveat.)
She begged Mr. Kuriyama to go with her. After some convincing and rearranging of his schedule, he agreed.
When the couple arrived at Caveat, she was shocked and disappointed to find the venue empty. “I turned around to make a snarky comment to Cesar only to find him standing on one knee,” Ms. Lindell said. “The surprise was so jarring, I had a brief moment of disorientation, followed quickly by delirious joy.”
Then, their friends and family came out from every corner of Caveat, where they had been hiding during the proposal. Two friends even showed up with 100 sandwiches from Burger King.
Prince Charming to Her Sleeping Beauty
In June 2022, Matthew Majchrzak enlisted a photographer friend of Emily McCormick to arrange a “Sleeping Beauty” photo shoot of her in the woods outside Philadelphia. Ms. McCormick, a content creator, would wear a velvet princess gown and a tiara and have her eyes closed for extended periods, giving Mr. Majchrzak a chance to surprise her with a kiss — and a ring.
“I whispered into her ear, ‘Honey, I’m going to kiss you now,’” Mr. Majchrzak said. He had to walk about a mile through the woods from an Airbnb, wearing around 60 pounds of full-plate armor, to reach the remote shoot location.
When Ms. McCormick opened her eyes, it took her a moment to realize that Mr. Majchrzak — not the prince taking part in the shoot — was standing there. “I was so over the moon,” Ms. McCormick said.
On Nov. 2, the couple were married at a historical mansion that perfectly matched the medieval aesthetics they wanted for their celebration.
At 5:57 a.m., They Were Fighting. By 6 a.m., They Were Engaged.
On Jan. 1, 2023, Anthony Verderame and Julie Mollo agreed they would be engaged by the end of the year. Mr. Verderame’s plan was to propose at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve.
On Dec. 30, their dog woke them at 5 a.m., and Ms. Mollo couldn’t go back to sleep. Mr. Verderame asked her why. “I’m mad at you,” she recalled saying to him. “You promised we’d be engaged.”
“‘You don’t even have a plan,’ she said to me,” Mr. Verderame said. “And I said, ‘Oh, I don’t have a plan. This is how you want this to happen?’”
He took the ring from the nightstand, got down on one knee, and proposed. “5:57 a.m. we were fighting, and 6 a.m. we were engaged,” Mr. Verderame said. “We had champagne and went back to sleep.”
They married on Oct. 2 at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau.
A Heart Necklace Symbolic of More
In October 2022, during a hike on an overlook along a secluded trail near Mount Holyoke, Mass., Gabriel Grand started hugging Nora O’Neill. She could feel his heart beating fast, and he got down on one knee on golden leaves carpeting the ground.
“I remember thinking, oh no, did he pick out a ring without me?” Ms. O’Neill said. The couple had planned to shop for engagement rings together.
Ms. O’Neill had been wearing a heart charm on her necklace ever since her parents gave it to her on her 16th birthday. Mr. Grand gave her a second heart for her necklace and asked, “Would you join your heart with mine?” They later shopped for rings together.
13 Days After Meeting, a Proposal
Tessa Tookes and Joey Kirchner met on a reality television show, “Bachelor in Paradise Canada,” after producers had been telling each of them individually that they had the perfect match for them. Just 13 days after meeting each other, she proposed to him, surrounded by cameramen, producers, showrunners, and a sound team, by saying, “Will you go to the disco with me for the rest of our lives?”
Crying, Mr. Kirchner got down on one knee and proposed as well. He said he knew that it was all somewhat outlandish — but he surrendered to the moment.
They married on Sept. 21 at the Brighthouse Farm in Prince Edward County, Ontario.
She Had to Wait Until Savasana
Rachael Palm and Carolyn Warhaftig met at a yoga studio in 2019. In September 2023, Ms. Palm had a photo shoot scheduled with members of the studio by a lake in Charlottesville, Va.
Ms. Palm tried to leave the photo shoot early several times, but the studio owner told her she would need to wait until the final group shot when they would all be lying in savasana, the final resting position.
When the group got into their places for the final shot, lying down on their mats with their eyes closed, the studio owner started reading a poem. It was Mary Oliver’s “The Journey,” which happens to be one of the first poems the couple shared with each other in their love letters in 2019. Ms. Palm smiled to herself, reminiscing.
When the poem was over, she felt someone take her hand. She opened her eyes, and Ms. Warhaftig was there, on one knee, telling her how much she loved her. Friends and family were hiding in the bushes on the resort property.
On Nov. 22, the couple tied the knot.
A New Start on an Empty Construction Zone
It was Louis Lin’s dream to open his own restaurant in Portland, Ore., serving what he calls “first-generation American” cuisine — American food with influences from all over the world. While initially, his partner, Jolyn Chen, was only going to design the interior of his restaurant, they eventually decided she should be the restaurant’s general manager, a job she still holds today.
In December 2022, Mr. Lin took her to the demolished space where the restaurant was being built to show her the progress of the construction. To her surprise, she saw the space cleared out with a candlelit path to a foldable rickety table, a bouquet of flowers, a handwritten card and a dozen doughnuts and chai from the local Pip’s Original Doughnuts & Chai.
They opened Xiao Ye (meaning “midnight snack” in Mandarin) in Portland’s Hollywood district in September 2023, and in its first year, it made several of the city’s best restaurant lists.
The post From Grand Gestures to Intimate Moments: 10 Memorable Proposals appeared first on New York Times.
