Tips on popping the question in style
As football season ends and Valentine's Day nears, men can focus on their other loves: their girlfriends.
For those ready to spend a lifetime with the gal who yelled, ''Go Pats!" alongside them all season, here are tips on proposing marriage in style.
Donna DePrisco, of DePrisco Diamond Jewelers in Boston, said there's no need to spend two months' salary on an engagement ring, as the diamond industry would have you believe. ''Buy what you can afford," she said, ''and have the confidence to pick what you think she would like."
Make the proposal simple, romantic, and heartfelt, and beware, DePrisco warned, of plans that could go awry. She said a client who went to the beach and buried the ring in a sand pail returned with his intended only to find the ring had either washed away or was stolen. She also cautions men to think twice about public proposals. ''If you get on TV or if you are in front of some huge crowd and she says no, well, that's just awful for everyone," DePrisco said.
But if you are sure she'll say yes, the Red Sox will display your proposal on the center field video board at Fenway Park between innings. (Gillette Stadium offers a similar service, but the FleetCenter no longer does.)
Colleen Reilly, a public relations liaison for the Sox, recalled a particularly memorable proposal: ''He was a Yankees fan and she was a Red Sox fan, and he asked her to marry him," Reilly said. ''Of course, she said, 'I would never marry a Yankees fan!' Just kidding. She said yes."
According to TheKnot.com, an online wedding resource, more than 40 percent of engagements in the United States take place between November and February. A December survey of 1,544 brides asking what really mattered about being engaged found that 90 percent said they wanted their betrothed to drop down on bended knee; 70 percent said being surprised by the proposal was ''vital," and 47 percent said it was important that their dad's permission be asked, according to Amy Shey Jacobs, a website spokeswoman.
Twenty percent said mom should be asked, too. ''She's the one who is going to become your mother-in-law," Shey Jacobs said, ''and you really want to make her happy."
Raphael Oliver, the general manager of the Top of the Hub Restaurant and Skywalk Observatory, said thousands of couples have begun their lives together there, nestled in the Boston skyline. He said the most dramatic proposal involved a small airplane that circled the 52d floor of the Prudential Tower where the restaurant is located towing a ''Will You Marry Me, Helen?" banner.
''When she looked out the window, he got down on one knee, and the whole restaurant clapped," said Oliver. ''Now that's far more interesting than dropping the ring into a glass of champagne, or serving it on top of dessert, which we will also do, but it makes us a little nervous."
Oliver said the restaurant will arrange for a limousine, flowers, a violinist, and, yes, even that airplane. ''Here," he said, ''the sky is the limit."
