Anyone have a suggestion on marriage-proposals, but then without a ring?

Is she going to mistake this gesture as a real wedding proposal? If I’d had this discussion with someone and then he asked me to marry him, I’d think he changed his mind and meant real marriage…. I will have to think on this one!

Depends on what you’re proposing. It doesn’t seem all that clear from what you’ve written.
“Will you not promise to marry me?”
“Will you promise to not marry me?”
“Surprise I got a vasectomy?”
“Surprise! SCUBA lessons!”

It depends on what she likes.

Take her to the Louvre, find a beautiful marriage-themed painting, say the words you’re supposed to say then round it off with some kinda special dinner thing.

How about a beautiful yet simple saphire or emerald pendant, and while placing it around her neck, whisper in her ear how much you love her, and how happy you are that she wants you to be together forever.

@Zen…I do! Wait a minute, I’m already married and you are a guy, right (albeit, one who recently questioned his sexuality, but that was jokingly, right?). Now I’m all confused, but your response was quite romantic! See ya….Gary/wtf

@whatthefluther—You make me smile.—

Say exactly what you would say , just say you can pick the ring ANY ring you want . She will knw and understand that cash is tight . If she says no use the kids as bait , say look at how upset you have made them by saying no thy will never love you again .

@cyndyh
Already had the vasectomy, so thats no surprise. But it of course a proposal to marry me. But just for the fun of the moment.. if that makes sense.. Since we al ready decided to get married.

@Zen That sounds like a good idea. Have to look for something nice though, since she does not really wear jewelry :)

@sandystrachan Money is not an issue at all, it’s just that we don’t wear rings. (we are not American, hence diamonds mean as much as cubic zirconia’s to us ;-) ).

@desmodus It could become an heirloom. And really, show me a woman who doesn’t like jewellery…! Mazel Tov btw.

I don’t wear my wedding ring and i am Scottish If its a case of jewellery isn’t really worn a meal a nice day out , who needs to see you are engaged as long as she knows how much you love her eh .
@Zen My wife doesn’t like jewellery.

I didn’t give my wife an engagement ring, mainly because I have serious issues with the whole diamond industry (did you know that the whole notion of the the big proposal with a diamond ring was entirely an invention of DeBeers’ marketing department?) anyway, more to the point, I took my wife to one of her favorite places for a hike in the woods, which is kind of a tradition for us, and while we were there I asked her to marry me, no gift involved. If you think a gift is the way to go, but she’s not into jewelry, I wouldn’t get jewelry. Maybe a really nice bottle of wine? Or some artwork?

I never had an engagement ring and never felt it was necessary for the proposal or anything else.

There are so many romantic places in Paris – the steps of Sacre Coeur looking over the nightime city, a morning walk along the Seine, that cafe on the top of the stairs on the Rue Caulincourt in Montmartre…..I don’t think you have to plan it much just let your heart talk at the right moment. As for a present, maybe the two of you could shop for something special in Paris to commemorate your plans.

What about a book? There are all of those bouquinistes on the baks of the Seine, and you could find a book that she loves Probably not Madame Bovary :). Then you could let her know how excited you are to start a new chapter together or is the pun too much?

How about looking her straight into the eye, taking both her hands into yours, telling her how much you love her, how meaningless your life would be without her, and that you cannot imagine going through life with anyone BUT her. Where you do it isn’t important, but a really romantic environment would be nice, and women love sincerity over everything, even jewelry. End with a hug and a deep passionate kiss and a promise to be there for her forever, no matter what.

Women are suckers for romantic words and an honest declaration of your undying love.

I would buy a really nice tiara, and crown her your queen of your heart. What would be more romantic than wearing an Audrey Hepburn tiara replica in Paris?

Before I formulate a response to the question you did ask, I would just like to express a bit of confusion as well…just making sure that even though you don’t believe in getting married “for the state”, you are planning on a legal marriage, correct? The reason I ask, and maybe I’m more hyper-sensitive to this being an American is that being legally married is a lot more at least in the US than just appeasing the State. Basically it conveys I believe HUNDREDS of special legal designations between the two of you that range anywhere from “easily obtainable by Domestic Partners, if one is willing to contract for each of these individual right separately”, to “possible by Domestic Partners, but not as tidy or complete as within a marriage,” to “completely unattainable except when married.” For example, and you probably don’t have this problem not being an American, but health insurance in the states, most companies won’t cover your girlfriend, even if you have kids together, but they WILL cover your wife. And I found out by working at one company when I was living with my then girlfriend/now wife, that for companies that DO offer benefits to domestic partners, you have to pay tax on the value of what the company pays on the behalf of your partner. So yeah, I could have gotten my girlfriend insured for say a couple hundred bucks a month, but I would have had to have paid taxes on an additional say $600 in income each month as well. It also allows us to do taxes together, which is financially beneficial in our circumstances. It allows me to have some say (or vice versa) if say she ends up in a vegetative state and does or does not want heroic measures, or what to do with her body if she dies before me, or even being able to visit her in the hospital if she becomes ill…you’re not married, you’re not considered “family”. Your laws I’m sure are more progressive than what we have in the bass ackwards Puritan United States of Jesus, but nonetheless, if you’re considering a simply “commitment ceremony” with no legal foundation, you “might” want to look into whether or not legal marriage would be beneficial to YOU.

Now, having said that, it’s none of my business and I’m pretty sure you would know all this already anyway, just wanted to throw it out there. Basically, I did go the ring route, but basically she was not expecting a ring at the time of the proposal as she wanted to pick it out herself, which is fine by me. I had always had romantic notions of hiding the ring in something, and actually I got tripped up on that very thing for quite a while. But once I accepted that no ring would be involved and I knew she was OK with that, I found a creative way to propose, and this won’t exactly work in your situation since you’re planning to just give the gift, but I basically had an occasion to give a gift (the 5th anniversary of when we started dating), and my girlfriend had been collecting bird figurines. I found this wedding cake topper (neither of us was into the whole idea of having avatars of ourselves on the cake) that happened to be this very nice Lenox China dove. I did not let her know it was a cake topper, just told her it was for her bird collection, but what I did was to tell her that it had a double meaning and that she needed to figure it out, and what I did was to give her clues via a series of poems, each one giving a hint as to what the figurine’s ultimate purpose was. And within the poems, as the first letter of every poem (I gave her a poem a day for two weeks), if you put them all together it spelled out the proposal “will you marry me” happens to have 14 letters. It was also fortuitous that we had dinner and a concert planned for the first night’s poem and the last night’s poem, and the last poem basically told her to get all 13 other poems and look at the first letter in each.

My point is I guess, if you can get something that you will incorporate into the wedding, that is a good gift, maybe in your situation a travel guide to Bali would be a good gift. Just something to get you thinking in the right direction, if you can make it personal to her or to the ceremony, it will have a great impact without being a “ring”.

@dalepetrie Wow. And I used to think I had some great romantic ideas, but that trumps all.

Well thanks, I figured it’s a once in a lifetime thing (at least that’s MY intention), I should be able to put some creativity into it. I’m sure you’ll find a unique way, just make sure it fits who you are and who she is and you’ll come up with something memorable, I’m sure.

(You can still get an engagement ring even if you don’t support the diamond industry. Just get one without a diamond. My husband found our engagement ring for ten bucks on eBay; it’s a plain silver band. The ring isn’t important, the sentiment is.)

As far as an answer to the question, you could always do the whole romantic thing without the ring or the word “marriage.” Go out for a nice dinner, and at some point when it feels right, you could do the whole “get down on one knee” deal and say something like, “Will you please stay with me forever?” or “Will you be mine, officially?” You get the idea. I bet she’ll smile no matter what you ask. You guys sound sweet. :)

Barring a ring (or a pendant or something), you could always give a flower, or something you’d written. Something she can press and/or save as a souvenir. Chicks dig that.

In my head, asking a girl to marry you and then presenting her with a bouquet of flowers seems appropriate.

@dalepetrie a pair of slippers to wear during the ceremony on the beach in Bali it will be.

Thanks!