Your partner is the first person you want to see in the morning and the last person you want to kiss goodnight. They’re your everything and you want to spend the rest of your lives together. Congratulations, you’re in love.
If you are the marrying kind and you have decided to marry your special person, then you need to work out how you will propose. In this day and age, there is more pressure than before to make a proposal special. Do you go down on one knee (picture a lone table with flowers, candles, dessert and acoustic music being played by three well dressed men) and say, ‘(Insert name), I love you and I always will. Will you marry me?’ and as that is said you open the presentation box to show the ring inside? It’s a classic. It works. It’s just not you, though.
So how do you propose, making it that little bit more special for the both of you? Couturing give you five interesting ways you can pop the question.
One: FLASHMOB
You’ve seen 500 days of Summer. Use a Flashmob to propose to the love of your life. Visualize all the sound and colour of people, coming together ‘spontaneously’ as you are about to, or after you propose.
You don’t have to use a Flashmob in the strictest of sense; you can adapt the situation, after all, it is your proposal. If that means it’s only your closest friends and family that break out into a choreographed dance routine (that you had all rehearsed on Wednesday nights for the past month whilst your partner trained with their running club), then so be it.
Try to remember, however, that although there is truth to the adage “there’s strength in numbers” you need to be able to keep the proposal somewhat personal. Unfortunately there’s no close-up camera shot or effect to help you with this like in the movies.
Two: CUSTOM VIDEO GAME
Videogames are fun no matter how old you are. So why not make a game for your partner to play? The goal: Finish the Level. The prize: A proposal and a ring.
The difficulty level of making a game varies depending on what programs you use and the complexity of the game you want to create. But if all you want to do is propose to your partner there are a number of already established games that allow you to do so without any experience.
One such game is Little Big Planet. Created by Media Molecule and published by Sony Computer Entertainment across multiple PlayStation platforms, LBP allows its users to easily create their own playable levels using functions that are built into the game. What you create from the ‘Blank Template’ is completely up to you and only limited by your imagination.
Otherwise, there are an abundance of engines that are available to be downloaded online (including many for free) that will allow you to create a game from scratch (i.e. using code). You can find some at RMN (rpgmaker.net) as well as tutorials on how to create your own game.
Three: STOP-MOTION FLIPBOOK
Sometimes when you speak nobody understands what you’re trying to say. Sometimes words trip you up and have you feel as if you’ve just fallen flat on your face. Let’s be honest, words aren’t your greatest strength. So why would you use words when you know you could do better without them?
A stop-motion flipbook is a novel way to say what you want to say without having to say it. It’s as easy as buying a pack of post-it notes and drawing a series of pictures on each one depicting your proposal. But then again you might want to make it more professional and not something that could so easily be discarded. Be technologically minded and make an animation on your computer and have it projected onto the white sheet you’ve draped from a tree in the park where you’re having a late-night picnic.
There are numerous websites that show you how to make your own animation. Simply type in ‘How to make a stop-motion flipbook’ into Google and pick the one you like best. And if you can’t draw, kidnap a Fine Arts student, they’ll thank you for the ‘experience’.
Four: HIDE AND SEEK
Some of our fondest memories are those from when we were children; when little mattered and the simplest of games would occupy our mind for hours. How about proposing to your partner in such a way that brings out their inner-child?
Fill an empty room with unraveled rolls of wool (or any other soft material) of all different colours and sizes. Make sure that there’s enough wool covering the floor so that if you were to jump and land anywhere you couldn’t hurt yourself. What you want to do, though, is hide the presentation box – or if you’re game, only the ring – somewhere in the jungle of wool for your partner to find. All you then have to do is wait around for them to find the box and open it up to see what’s inside.
This would work best if the proposal were disguised by a birthday or another event where you would generally be giving them a gift. This way they wouldn’t know what it was they were looking for until they found it. Surprise!
Five: MEMORY LANE
After a long arduous day you’re the person your partner wants to see before they go to sleep at night. Why not incorporate this into your proposal?
With the help of your closest friends and family put together an itinerary for your partner to follow that leads to you. Remember, though, that you don’t want them skipping anything you have planned for them so make sure that they don’t know where they’re going next.
Start with the most important meal of the day and have someone take him or her out to breakfast. Here, and along all the other stops on their route, remind them through your friends and family that you love them and always will.
Each stop should either be somewhere they love, to show them that you know them well, or somewhere that holds a special significance to the both of you – where you met or had your first date for example.
By the time they reach their final destination they will have spent the day with many people reminding them of your love. From then on it’s all up to you.
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