Was your engagement a surprise?

random10

I'm going out with my boyfriend nine years. We have decided we'll get married in 2013 and have spent the last few weeks looking at rings. He will then keep the ring and propose to me when the time is right. Is this unusual, I find it hard to believe when people say they had no idea the proposal was coming, surely everyone discusses their marriage before the proposal, to make sure they want the same things from life, or am I being totally unromantic?

Bride2012

Mine was a surprise, we'd only spoken about marriage in a hypothetical sense before that. I really didn't see it coming.

Yours is definately not unusual though and it's becoming more frequent too. Many friends have decided first and left the actual on bended knee thing as an upcoming event. Whatever works for you. Romance is over rated sometimes too.

bills

Im the same as you. we were going out 9 years & had discussed it.
However, he did kinda spring it on me one morning by announcing shall we go ring shopping.
It was a surprise in that it was actually happening that day, even though I knew it was coming as some stage if you get me.

Monife

Me and my OH were only together a bit over a year and a half before we "discussed it". Went shopping for rings soon after, took like 2 months to find perfect one, then he hid it away from me and said he would propose in due course. Took him another 2 months (thought he had forgot ha ha) and he proposed on our anniversary As romantic as not knowing is, I think it would be horrible if you didnt like the ring. In this day and age, most couples are living together and would have talked about this type of thing if they were serious.

magentas

I'm not engaged but we have broached the subject and TBH I'd hate if we talked about it loads and planned it all and went ring shopping BEFORE the proposal. It sounds mad to me but anyone else I've spoken to about it and my friends that are engaged make out that this is completely the norm (planning and picking ring first I mean) One girl said there's no way you could let a guy pick a ring on his own!

Each to their own though, that's just me. We're together over 4yrs and when it does happen, I want it to be a surprise. I trust that he would pick something that's my style, he knows me better than I know myself at the best of times and I know that I would love it regardless. Anyways, the ring is material to me, the fact that he would be asking me to be his wife and spend the rest of our lives together would kinda be the big deal!

Maybe I'm just a romantic old fool!:o

magentas

Oh and congrats on your engagement!:)

random10

I might have thought that I'd like to pick my ring, I knew exactly what I wanted but at this stage I've fitted on about 50 rings and haven't found the one I LOVE yet so I'm happy with how it's working out, but as is said here each to their own.

random10

Thanks, it hasn't happened yet, but it's on the way

Dolbert

It's a funny one! In our case we've discussed it, agreed that we want to get married and basically planned our ideal wedding!

Yet we know that there's no point in telling anyone that we're 'engaged' until we have a plan and a ring I don't see any surprise proposal happening in our case!

Cathmandooo

Mine was a surprise! We had spoken about the future alright that we'd like to be together forever and one day get married, but the short-medium term plan was to look into buying a house before doing anything.

We were together 2 and a half years and he picked out the ring himself and popped the question, much to my delight I always thought I'd like to pick my own ring but him picking it was just so perfect, I love the ring! Wedding is happening next year so we're in the throws of the planning stage at the minute, loving it though!

ElleEm

Dolorous wrote: »

It's a funny one! In our case we've discussed it, agreed that we want to get married and basically planned our ideal wedding!

Yet we know that there's no point in telling anyone that we're 'engaged' until we have a plan and a ring I don't see any surprise proposal happening in our case!

Same as that for myself and my partner. We're together over 5 years and have spoken about getting married since the beginning. We know what sort of wedding we want, and have looked at rings but the actual "proposal" bit will be a surprise. He is into big gestures and really wants to go all out and surprise me, but I don't need that. I love us right now, and can't wait to be his wifey!

moco

Mine was a surprise..probably a surprise to him too when he sobered up lol.

We spent the next month thinking about and looking at rings, then got one when we were in New York for the weekend. We didn't tell anyone til we got the ring.

Clare Bear

I knew it was going to happen in the not too distant future because we'd talked about it and I presumed it'd happen at some stage this year because he's crap at trying to get info out of me without being obvious But I didn't expect it to happen when it did, no, he got in there a lot earlier than I expected I'm not really the big wedding type and I was happy out the way we were so it was all him but it was lovely. He picked out the ring but he'd known what kind of ring I'd wanted for ages.

So I suppose I was surprised but not completely shocked because I knew it was going to happen at some stage anyway.

Always number 1

We were together over 8 years and had bought our house 18 months before, we knew we'd get engaged and married at some point but we weren't in any hurry. Then, completely out of the blue on my birthday, he proposed to me. He bought a token ring (based on what I thought I always wanted) but when we went ring shopping I got something completely different. We're getting married in 4 weeks!!!
A friend of mine and her boyfriend went to Amsterdam before Christmas and bought the ring and she was waiting for him to propose. She expected it to be around Christmas/New Years but he only proposed last week
Each to their own but I think in this day and age a lot of couples buy a house and engagement/marriage comes after that

watna

Nope, not a surprise at all. We proposed to each other! Sometimes I think it would have been nice to have a surprise but then, that's not really us and how we do things. We got engaged the way we did for other people (namely his family as we were visiting them at the time).
We had already talked about getting married in 2012 so it was just a matter of time. On the day we had a chat about it out of the blue and decided we didn't want to get engaged where neither of us have family (i.e. where we currently live) so we decided just to go for it and tell everyone we were engaged so we'd get to have the experience of having at least one of our families around us.

I got my ring made and got it about 6 weeks later. He bought me an "interim ring" on the day which was a plain white gold band (the only one that would fit me in any of the shops we went to) and I'm going to use that as my wedding ring now.

Each to their own, imo. It's what ever works for you as a couple.

HairMonster

magentas wrote: »

when it does happen, I want it to be a surprise. I trust that he would pick something that's my style,

You don't have to have the ring at the proposal - most people I know went ring shopping after he popped the question

Of course the rest of your lives together is the big deal, but it'd be nice to have a ring you like. I agree with the girl who said never let a guy pick a ring on his own! You're the one who has to wear it every day for the rest of your life so wouldn't you prefer something you liked?:)

Shoe Lover

I'm not engaged (yet) but we have spoken about it lots. Going out with himself five years now and are in the process of applying for Planning Permission to build a house so we've kind of already made the commitment that we will be together for a long long time. We've spoken about getting engaged a lot, a lot more this year, particularly because two of our best friends got married on Saturday :D:D:D It is something that we will be doing but he wants to do it in his own way at his own time, but we have kinda said it will be this year - I'm crossing everything for this, but we won't be picking out the ring and him holding on to it for ages before asking THE question!

Gatica

In our case we had talked about the future together and things like kids or house sometime in the future. It was never a "soon" sort of thing.
I'd almost thought he was about to propose a couple of times in the last couple of years, but nay. So when he finally did, it was a bit of a surprise. The timing was, the proposal wasn't as he'd been very secretive about what we were doing for the weekend and whisked me away for a romantic pampering weekend, which he has never done before, so I was suspicious, but did not wish to delude myself yet again.
I got a token necklace, which I loved, and then we picked out the ring together. We didn't announce it til we had the ring.

I think there are pros and cons for having the proposal ring. The pro naturally being that it really is very romantic having the bent knee and a beautiful ring shining up at you from a velvet box, plus you probably will never know what it cost. The con is that you don't get to pick the ring, the one that you will wear and love all your life.

mollybird

ya mine was a surprise but not a complete shocker either. i knew he would have the ring when he would pop the question as i tried to tell him a year or two ago id seen the perfect ring but he didn't want to know:)

we had discussed it at length and he assured me quite a bit that it would happen but he just didn't want to do it when his two mates were doing it. so had to wait till those two weddings were done before it was my turn.

now i'm happily planning our day:)