At Trenderway, we’re incurable romantics, so we thought we’d explore that most romantic of romantic things: The Valentine’s Day Proposal. Well yes indeed, it’s ever so slightly cheesy and a bit of a cliche..and yet…what a wonderful thing! He or she getting down on one knee and popping that question to which, surely, the answer has to be ‘Yes pleeeeease!’
But. But. Do we all get carried away with an irresistible frisson of lovelorn excitement with the very anticipation that our gorgeous other half might just be crazily romantic enough to propose on Valentine’s Day? Well if you’re in this marketplace, in the ‘Goldilocks Zone’ of your relationship, at that time when this next, brave and wonderful step is perhaps the obvious one to take, we guess that you’ll find out on Monday.
Statistics vary by source but it looks as if around 20,000 couples in the UK will get engaged on Valentine’s Day this year and that’s without allowing for a post-pandemic bounce. That’s a lot of roses and champagne.
You’re in good celebrity company if you get engaged on Valentine’s Day. Orlando Bloom proposed to Katy Perry in a helicopter on this day in 2019 and Harrison Ford popped it to Calista Flockhart on 14 February 2009. Valentine’s Day Weddings are of course a thing as well. Benedict Cumberbatch wed Sophie Hunter on this day in 2015.
But do you suspect a proposal is imminent? After all, Monday isn’t the most usual day to be asked out to dinner somewhere special, or perhaps your suspicions were first aroused when your other half suggested, a month or two ago, that you both take a couple of days off at the start of this otherwise rather nondescript week in mid February.
If you’ve already been whisked away for a mini-break in some historically lovely European capital this weekend, face-masking your way around the Sistene Chapel perhaps – weaving your way around even more Rome-antic Valentine’s lovers – or enjoying a wintery stroll around Prague Old Town, you’ll very possibly be about to receive a ‘Destination Proposal’. Yes, this was the modus operandi that was opted for, when this important matter was given furrow-browed consideration a few months back by that considerate charmer who you’re destined to spend your life with.
This is just one of several ‘classic’ methodologies for Valentine’s Day proposals. There’s also the proven, awesomely swoonsome winner, the ‘Bed of Roses’ or the ‘Roses Everywhere’ treatment, where you’ll come home from work to find your place literally festooned with romance and – in all likelihood – a certain someone, with a rose between his teeth, holding a glass of bubbly in the kitchen in anticipation of your teary, smiley entrance.
The surprise jewellers appointment can also work well, but it’s not for everyone. There’s that potential awkwardness over budget. Even if it’s been discussed – when it comes to choosing that lovely sparkly diamondy ring ‘A’ over lovely sparkly diamondy ring ‘B’ and there’s a price difference of a grand or two…do they really mean ‘don’t even worry about the price’. Does he? Does she?
These days, proposals are done over video on social media, rings are delivered by drone, first dates are lovingly recreated, flowers are delivered for 14 consecutive days in February up to the day itself (too late for that one…) you can propose over the radio – or indeed in front of a packed upper deck on a rush-hour London bus, if you so wish.
Or your style might simply be to pop the question (or have the question popped…) in bed with your beloved, on a Monday morning over a cup of coffee, before you both get up and go to work. No fuss.
And if it’s a big thumbs up, as we’re sure it will be, you’ve got that incomparable wedding to plan…
Our very best wishes to romantics everywhere, from all of us at Trenderway, this Valentine’s Day.