Name: Public marriage proposals.
Age: Ancient.
Appearance: Either incredibly romantic or wildly annoying, depending on who you are.
Count me in as the former, please. Then you’re going to love this. Last weekend, a man called Rhys Whelan proposed to his girlfriend Megan Greenwood during a fireworks contest in Ripon.
How sweet. Did he hide her ring in a sparkler? No, he spelled out the words “Marry Me” in the sky with a squadron of illuminated drones.
Drones? You mean the technology previously most creatively deployed to recreate a giant flying image of Captain Tom during the London New Year festivities in 2021? The very same.
How long did the proposal take to organise? Six months. But it took only a couple of days to make it into the national newspapers, complete with a photo of Whelan kissing his girlfriend in celebration.
You think all this was just for attention? No, I think he hijacked a very public event in order to propose to his girlfriend because he is incredibly shy and retiring.
You’re a cynic. I think it’s beautiful. Oh fine, it was actually quite sweet, and the couple seem as if they are deeply in love.
Imagine if she had said no, though. It has certainly happened before. Just last year, a man at a National Hockey League match in New York waited until the moment the “kiss cam” – a roving break-time camera on the audience – fell upon him before kneeling down in front of his girlfriend and removing his shirt to reveal the message “PLZ SAY YES YES YES” in front of thousands.
And did she not say yes? She did not. She knelt down, whispered something to him and then fled the stadium, leaving him publicly humiliated.
Yikes. Something similar happened during a Boston Red Sox baseball game in 2017. A man used the giant video display at the ground to propose and was rejected. Helpfully, the crowd reacted by chanting “SHE SAID NO” at the man.
Public proposals must work sometimes? Yes, sometimes. Chinese diver He Zi said yes to a proposal from her boyfriend immediately after she received a silver medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016, even though to all the world it looked as if he was piggybacking the biggest moment in her career.
That’s still sort of romantic. As is the proposal that came in the form of a fake film trailer that a man called Matt Still made for his girlfriend in 2011 – it aired in among the other trailers before a screening of Fast & Furious 5.
How did you learn about that? Because Still posted it to YouTube, where it has been viewed more than 35m times, with the title “Greatest marriage proposal EVER!!!”. He also used the video description to tell media outlets how to contact him if they want to license the clip. You know, the old-fashioned way.
So it works! We should all propose in public. Still did post a comment under the clip a few years ago to say that the couple were “still happily married”. Definitive proof that couples who aggressively market their proposal videos together stay together.
Do say: “Darling, would you do me the honour …”
Don’t say: “… of making me go viral?”
English (US)