To ask whether your proposal/engagement was really a ‘surprise’?

[Daxibel]

There’s been various posts on here recently about time periods for getting engaged, ‘how long to wait’, whether to impose deadlines and all sorts. I genuinely find it surprising seeing how many people in adult relationships claim to just sit back and wait for a proposal without discussing future plans with their partner beforehand and both agreeing timescales for marriage as soon as things start to get serious (if both parties want to marry of course).

It seems that many women still expect a fairytale proposal out of the blue which comes as a complete surprise. In my mind, those are the sorts of scenarios that happen mostly in movies and much more rarely in real life?!

So I’m genuinely interested to know, for those of you married or engaged, had you previously already discussed your plans for the future and timescales e.g. both agreed you’d like to marry by xyz number of years together, or was your proposal at the time period it occurred a complete surprise?

YABU - we hadn’t discussed it beforehand
YANBU - we had already spoken about our expectations and timescales around marriage

Yes we had discussed it. But the proposal was still a surprise. I was unaware he’d planned it.

He surprised me after 6 months of dating. We married 18 months later and have been married 24 years.

Nice Christmas day surprise, down on 1 knee in the snow. The ring he bought was too big so we had to order a smaller one, when it arrived he proposed a second time with the new ring. He was so sweet back then, now I don't even get offered a brew.

No first time around, we sort of discussed getting married, no actual proposal. I would kind of like a surprise if dp wants to do legally - there's actually no need, and anyway I need to finalise my divorce but I'm wondering about a fairy tale moment

l got engaged the day before I got married, so....not really.

How did you make all the necessary arrangements so quickly?

Mine was a complete surprise. We were together two years at the time and I was 23. Still happily married.

Fine for the proposal itself to be a surprise, but both of you wanting to get married and expectations of married life and timescales should have long been discussed and agreed on

We had moved in together, had talked about marriage and had set a target for raising enough money for a house deposit.

DH proposed on the first anniversary of our first date. I genuinely was not expecting the proposal as early as that.

Completely out of the blue, and an amazing proposal.

We discussed marriage and agreed that we wanted to marry. We didn’t discuss exact timelines, such as by the end of next year or something similar, but we talked about our future and that we wanted to marry each other. So I knew the formal proposal was coming, since we basically had a kind of agreement-in-principle! But the exact details of when & where he kept a surprise.

Complete surprise here.. we had never even mentioned anything about it.. we were together one year at that l stage. I really was blindsided.. I thought he was joking at first.. !

Same as PP, knew the engagement was imminent but the time and place of the actual proposal was a complete surprise which was very well done by DH as I was convinced he’d never be able to catch me off guard. I still can’t believe the lengths he went to in order to surprise me / make it so exciting and it was nearly 10 years ago.

Engaged after a few weeks so it was a surprise. I think it’s strange when friends have mentioned that they are planning together to become engaged on holiday etc. Surely if you’re planning together on being engaged you’re in theory already engaged.

no - both times

first was on date 3 - I said if we are still together in a year then yes

second time was 5 months later - chatting about the future on holiday - popped his head round the toilet door later (I know!) and said 'shall we then?'

No huge gestures really but not expected - married 12 years - divorced 13 but had some happy times and 3 great kids we manage to co parent well

Didn't have the slightest clue, and it was definitely a surprise.

@Traumdeuter we also had a mortgage in completely equal parts, both earn very similar incomes and I didn't reduce to PT hours after having the baby, hence us feeling already quite committed and marriage not being a top priority. Baby had been unplanned (as in happening so quickly, we'd have waited another year or 2) and was 9 months old when he proposed, we got married alone, just us 2 and a small party with family and friends to celebrate afterwards - but still, the fact there was a ring included in my presents on my birthday, handed to me by my baby when he said there's another present for mummy, made it a completely perfect surprise. We are 11 years down the line now.

I knew that we would get married. I sort knew that we would be getting engaged in the next year or so.
When he chose to do it was a complete surprise. I hadn’t guessed at all.

Complete surprise! But we were only 20 and had only been together a few months .

In the moment it was a surprise but I was expecting it to happen around that time. I knew we were on the same page.

We planned it. We’d been talking about it so much, it was clearly both of our intentions and even started talking about wedding plans so agreed we were basically already “engaged”.

However we wanted to make a bit more of an event of it so we went off to Birmingham to have a ring designed together, which was a beautiful, really special day out and was a really exciting thing to do together.

It took six weeks to have it made, which coincided with him going to stay with his family (near Birmingham) without me, so he collected the ring on his way home. We agreed that the day he came home we’d have a “date day” together and that would be us “making it official” but was also our Christmas as he’d been away for Christmas. So we’d booked a fancy restaurant etc for the evening and then plan was to spend the day just enjoying each other.

I didn’t expect any “formal” proposal or getting on one knee (I hate surprises and he knows this!) but when I came downstairs he was waiting in front of the Christmas tree on one knee! He thought I knew enough about it to mitigate the “hates surprises” part and wanted to do this small element traditionally. I loved it as it really showed how much he got “me”. That was the day we told all our friends and family. We also didn’t do what some people do and try and fake that it was a surprise- we told people that we’d gone and picked the ring together!!!

Our whole relationship felt like a sort of test drive for whether or not we wanted to get married. We had discussed that if either of us had felt we were not on the path to marriage we would end the relationship and has spoken about our expectations of marriage, children, old age etc. So it definitely felt like marriage was on the cards. Having said that the proposal was a complete surprise. So much so I missed the first half of his speech as I was busy fiddling with a camera/looking at something in the distance. It took me a while to twig that he was down on one knee and not just doing up his laces! Because I hadn't anticipated it I had to do a quick mental check that this was definitely, definitely what I wanted and that I wasn't getting swept up in the moment. Check done, I said yes and ten years later I have no regrets!

He pulled me in front of a jewellers and said pick one, so I did so I knew he had the ring.

The actual proposal happened just before Christmas in Covent Garden by the big tree. We'd taken a selfie and he said it's not sparkly enough, me looking at the picture thinking what does he mean? Turned round and he was on 1 knee! I said yes, we kissed and hugged and the people on the balcony of the pub there all cheered and clapped! It was quite romantic as I wasn't expecting it that night at all! It's a very happy memory!

We are adults who discussed our planned life together. He wanted to do a formal proposal
so he did. I wasn’t 100% sure it would be the moment it happened, though I had an inkling because he was so nervous, but I wasn’t remotely surprised to be getting engaged or that we would begin planning a wedding.

I proposed to him so it was a surprise (we'd been together 9 years, although only 29 years old when I proposed) married 9 years.

I did a Feb 29th proposal as it happened to be a leap year. Told him we should do a romantic getaway for valentines day but do it a couple of weeks later to avoid getting ripped off. I told him we were going away beginning of March too incase he cottoned on to the date. (Although he's a bit clueless about that sort of thing so probably wouldn't have realised) Then last minute said the dates of the flights had changed due to strike action in Rome and I'd cleared it with our boss and we had to go midweek instead.

It was fun to arrange and pull off, I intended to propose at the Colleseum but it was too crowded and I bottled it so waited till we were alone whilst walking around the garden balconies of Palentine Hill and proposed there (with a novelty ring). I had then booked a private spa for two and a tasting menu for the evening. It all went suprisingly brilliantly. I'm the romantic one in the relationship so I just thought instead of hinting heavily and getting a non-surprise proposal why not do it myself. He did get me an engagement ring though and I got to choose. _

We'd talked about it a lot and I had a feeling he was going to propose that day so not surprised but was still nice. He proposed on our eight anniversary.