An engagement ring hidden in an elephant trunk in Southeast Asia. A golden eagle serving as a wingman for a prospective groom in Mongolia. A double dose of matchmaking magic in Mississippi.
There are many stories behind the question: Will you marry me? And over the years, countless wedding proposals from around the world have been submitted to The New York Times’s Weddings section. Here are a few creative and romantic ones that we’ve recently seen.
A Trunk and a Box
In May 2018, Peter Nosal took Lisa Goldstein, who has loved elephants since she was a child, to an elephant camp on the border of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. Although Ms. Goldstein had a notion that Mr. Nosal would ask her to marry him on that trip — their second visit to Thailand — she didn’t know that one of the elephants would get in on the act.
As Ms. Goldstein posed for a photo with Mr. Nosal and several of the elephants, he surreptitiously slipped a box over to Yuki, a middle-age female elephant. When one of the elephant guides called out a command, Mr. Nosal pointed to Yuki and told Ms. Goldstein that she had a present for her.
Yuki then turned her trunk, on which a box holding the engagement ring rested, toward Ms. Goldstein. She slowly reached out to take the box while Mr. Nosal dropped to one knee and did the rest.
“I rolled the dice by placing a lot of trust in that elephant to not eat the ring,” Mr. Nosal said, laughing. “But in the end, I was really happy the way things turned out.”
The couple were married April 20.
Perfectly Landed Proposal
Earlier this year, Alexander Fankuchen visited Dr. Alexa Monroy in Mongolia, where she was conducting a research project on childhood asthma management. While there, Mr. Fankuchen coordinated with trainers of a golden eagle which would eventually fly to Ms. Monroy’s arm and deliver in its talons a surprise for the future bride — an engagement ring.
“My family and friends were completely blown away when they saw our proposal video,” Ms. Monroy said. “It was an incredible experience.”
They were married Nov. 20.
Back-to-Back Matches
Match Day at the University of Mississippi Medical Center is always filled with pomp and tradition. It’s the day medical students in their final year learn where they will be doing their residencies for the next three to five years. Medical institutions rank their preference of medical students, and the students do the same. An algorithm determines “a match,” which the students are contractually obligated to abide by.
This year’s Mississippi Match Day, which took place March 15, was doubly rewarding for Morgan Davis, 27, who was nervous when called onstage. “I felt like I wanted to throw up,” she said. “I couldn’t breathe.”
She felt better when she opened her envelope saying she matched with the University of California San Diego, her first choice.
But then she was handed another envelope. Inside was a sheet of paper asking, “Will you marry me?” She turned around and saw her now-fiancé, Maurtice Mills, 25, a first lieutenant in the United States Marines, by her side with an engagement ring.
“I was speechless at first because everything we both ever wanted in life happened in about 30 seconds,” Ms. Davis said. “It was wonderful, but at the same time, a bit overwhelming.”
They have set a wedding date for March 20, 2021.
Selfies Over the Seine
In October 2018, Yuanyuan Tang, then a second-year law student at Boston University, traveled to Paris to visit her boyfriend, Hui Zhu, who was studying for a Ph.D. in fundamental mathematics at the Université Paris-Sud in Orsay, France.
They were strolling through Ms. Tang’s favorite garden, Jardin des Tuileries at sunset when Mr. Zhu dropped to one knee and proposed.
She cried and said yes, and they proceeded to take selfies over the Seine River before heading to the Louvre Museum, where they took official engagement photos and more selfies. (Mr. Zhu posed with a promise ring Ms. Tang had previously given him.)
“Paris has been such an important city to us, so it was fitting that we were engaged there,” said Ms. Tang, who had attended high school with Mr. Zhu in Shaoxing, China. “It was our best stroll ever.” she said.
They were married May 3.
Shiny Holiday Ornament
Daniel Morgese proposed to Liane Terracciano the day before Thanksgiving in 2018. He put up a Christmas tree with simple white lights, and a single, porcelain jewelry-box ornament, in Ms. Terracciano’s apartment in Stamford, Conn.
When Ms. Terracciano plugged in the lights and asked about the lone ornament, Mr. Morgese opened it to reveal an engagement ring inside. He then got down on one knee and proposed.
“It was simple and sweet and shared only by the two of us,” Ms. Terracciano said. “That’s exactly how I wanted it to be.”
They were married Dec. 14.
A Reminder of Home
The engagement of Errol Barnett and Ariana Tolbert was a reflection of their multinational heritage.
Mr. Barnett, an anchor/correspondent for CBS News in New York who was born in England and is of Jamaican descent, proposed to Ms. Tolbert, whose mother is from France, in the Versailles Gardens and French Cloister in the Bahamas in December 2017. The two took their engagement photos above Great Falls Park on the Potomac River outside Washington.
“Our journey together is only just beginning,” Mr. Barnett said. “So far it has all been so very exciting,”
They were married May 18.
Embassy Sweet
In October 2016, Danielle Daitch and Joshua DeLott took a weekend trip to Washington to visit their friend, Travis Gidado, who was interning at the White House. After a Saturday brunch, Mr. Gidado asked if the couple could drive him to the Chinese Embassy to retrieve a visa for his upcoming trip to Beijing. He asked Ms. Daitch to hold an envelope with what he said were important papers related to his trip.
Unbeknown to Ms. Daitch, the Israeli Embassy was directly across from the Chinese Embassy, and when she and Mr. DeLott, now on foot, were square in the middle of both, Mr. DeLott dropped to one knee, and facing both her and the Israeli Embassy, asked for her hand in marriage.
“The papers I was told to hold was actually a beautiful letter from Josh telling me all the reasons he wanted to marry me,” Ms. Daitch said. “I was definitely caught off guard.”
A Puzzling Proposal
Nearly two years ago, Amanda Yesnowitz, a crossword puzzle constructor, said to her longtime boyfriend, Brendan McGrady: “If you wish to get married you will need to be the one to ask and the proposal must be clever.”
On Sept. 2, 2019, Mr. McGrady proposed to Ms. Yesnowitz in a New York Times crossword puzzle at a tournament in Westchester, N.Y., hosted by Will Shortz, the crossword editor.
Mr. McGrady, an actor, had been working on his proposal for months with the help of Mr. Shortz.
Ms. Yesnowitz was clueless.
“I was shocked and confused because going to that tournament was my idea,” she said. “I guess Brendan was taking notes when I asked for a clever proposal.”
The Art of Proposing
After a couple of years together, Andrew Ogletree, an antiques dealer, decided to propose to William Long, who works for a financial services company. Under the guise of one of Mr. Ogletree’s clients donating an important piece of art, Mr. Ogletree invited Mr. Long to a private unveiling on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When the weather refused to cooperate, a quick relocation to the mezzanine of the Roman Galleries was arranged.
While distracting Mr. Long by pointing to a piece in the gallery that had sold at Sotheby’s, Mr. Ogletree reached into his pocket, grabbed a monogrammed signet ring and asked Mr. Long to marry him.
“It was especially wonderful to be in the precinct of the Temple of Dendur by ourselves because it was there that we met at the 600th Anniversary celebration of St. Andrews University, our alma mater, in December 2014,” Mr. Ogletree said. “We had a blast.”
They were married June 1.
A Proposal and a Counterproposal
Katherine Rhodes picked up Claire Pires on Jan. 12, 2018 at the train station in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and they went out to dinner. Later, Ms. Rhodes nervously drove Ms. Pires to the same cabin in the Hudson Valley where the couple first said “I love you” to each other.
Ms. Pires entered the cabin to find dozens of photos of her and Ms. Rhodes hung on the walls, and roses everywhere.
“It was amazing,” said Ms. Pires, who made a counterproposal on April 14, 2018 at their Brooklyn home. She surprised Ms. Rhodes with flowers, dinner and wine — along with clues that led Ms. Rhodes to their roof, where Ms. Pires, on one knee and with the Manhattan Bridge in the distance behind her, asked, “Will you marry me, also?”
They were married April 6.
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