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When it comes to love and romance, the public marriage proposal has long been accepted as being a grand gesture of romantic love, commitment and adoration. Combine the shimmering lights, music and an understandably excited and expectant crowd, and the pressure is on the woman to say “yes!” to make an ever grander romantic spectacle of the occasion.
At least, that’s what’s supposed to happen when the potential bride-to-be follows the script. So what happens when she goes off script, and gives the answer that no one really wants to hear?
Here’s a collection from across the nation of public marriage proposals where the bride went off script, and followed her own path.
A public proposal for an introverted woman that predictably failed.
This happened to me years ago, and after that experience, I’m happy to stay as a single introvert for the rest of my life.
My boyfriend at the time and I had been together for about 3 years, when he started hinting that he wanted to propose, and was planning something grand and flashy. I figured out pretty quickly he was going for a public spectacle of a proposal, which is precisely the thing I did not want.
We had been dating for a few years so he really should know better than to even hint at something like this. I hoped it was just a teasing joke. I really should have known better.
We were out on a date in Subang Parade, having ice cream when the singers came out of nowhere, strumming guitars, and he pulled a wireless microphone out of somewhere. And then, in the middle of McDonalds, he got down on one knee to propose. In public.
I admit, I caved to the public pressure. Feeling like I was being equal parts trapped and forced, I said yes. To be honest, I wanted to do the exact opposite: I wanted to snatch the mic and slap him with it before making the most epic mic drop and walking away.
The truth was, our relationship had been a little rocky, and there were a lot of issues. Marriage was not going to fix those problems. His happiness lasted until we got back to his car about an hour later, and he proceeded to drive me home. No doubt, he wanted to share the news with my parents.
During the drive, it hit me like a bus that being married to him would mean a lifetime of this kind of insensitivity. It was more than the proposal being wrong for me. It was that he didn’t seem to care what was right for me.
I didn’t even let him get out of the car at my parents place. I broke off the engagement, telling him firmly that not only was the engagement over, so were we.
Of course, he cried and yelled at me and tried to start a fight about it in the car – remember those other issues I mentioned? He drove off, tires squealing in a fit of anger.
When I got home, I changed my status to Single on FaceBook and then blocked him everywhere.
I have no idea what happened to him afterwards, but I’m still enjoying my life and working on building up my streaming side hustle, with my cats as the costars. Who knows? I might become the crazy-cat-lady-spinster-sister but that’s the future. Right now, I’m happy being single.
She said “not right now”, but I’m glad we waited
I’d been dating Liang for about six months, and it was going pretty well despite the usual problems you find in a relationship after the “honeymoon” phase.
After two years of dating, I’d obtained with great difficulty the customary familial blessings. It was a semi-public thing when I got down on one knee and proposed to her. We were surrounded by our parents and a few of our closest friends
Liang, to her credit, has absolutely no poker face, and I could immediately see that she was not onboard with getting married at all.
When I got down on one knee, she immediately threw cold water on the proposal and said no in front of our parents and friends!
Before I could react, she followed up by saying, “not right now,” explaining that she did see marriage and kids in our future together, it’s just that there were some issues and other things we needed to fix first.
I think everyone was relieved when we were able to discuss things instead of fighting like brats, and we still celebrated the fact that we had come this far, and wanted to build a future together.
Looking back, she was right: I was halfway through my MBA, she had just shifted careers, and there were some other things we needed to figure out. But since we agreed to stay together and figure it out, we got the blessings of both sets of parents. And then we popped the champagne, drank and celebrated anyway!
It took us another 2 years before we finally were in the right time. By then, our relationship had evolved from ‘good with rough fights’ into ‘great with mature, low tension and no drama disagreements.’
I proposed again with just the two of us at our favourite sky bar one evening. She broke into the widest smile I’d seen, said yes, and we got engaged. We celebrated as a family just a few days later.
We’ve now been married 8 years come March 2024, have supported each other through thick and thin, and are raising two awesome kids ages 4 and 6.
She said no because she had a life-threatening disease. I married her anyway.
It’s been a decade since my wife passed away, but our relationship began almost 20 years ago:
My wife and I joined the same company just before the September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001.
We were colleagues first, and then became best friends. We spent five years of office warfare alongside each other. Then she told me she was changing jobs and had to leave.
On her last day there, I waited until the end of the work day and immediately asked her out to dinner. She blushed beautifully and said yes. We would go on four dates in that first week, and date for another four years before we moved in with each other.
My girlfriend always had poor health due to a weakened immune system due to childhood illness but she’d always soldier through the discomforts, aches and pains to live her life to the fullest possible extent.
I knew that I wanted to be with her forever. Knowing that, I got the parental blessings, arranged a small intimate dinner at her parents house for our two immediate families and I popped the question.
She burst into tears, saying she was sorry and ran to her bedroom and slammed the door. The confusion on my face was plain to everyone. But the confusion on everyone else’s face was just as plain and easy to read.
She came down a short while later, holding a stack of papers. The top was a referral letter from her gynaecologist to an oncologist at Sunway Medical Centre.
I accompanied her for all the tests and the results put our wedding plans on hold, and nearly cancelled them because her diagnosis was stage 3 metastatic ovarian cancer, with maybe 1 year of life to live.
I wasn’t prepared to let that hold us back. It took me almost a week to convince her that I still wanted to marry her, because I loved her, even if our future life together wouldn’t be for long.
Once I managed to convince her, her parents and mine rallied the extended families, the lawyers, and the Pastor and we got the paperwork sorted in a week, and a church wedding, tea ceremonies and a reception dinner were arranged. Two weeks later, we were married.
5 months later, my wife passed away surrounded by our families and close friends in her family home.
It’s been almost a decade, and knowing what I knew back then, and even knowing what I know now, I would do it all again. I do not regret marrying her, and I treasure every day and every moment I got to spend with her.
How did your marriage proposal go?
Share your thoughts in the comments!
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Read also: 5 Honest Truths About Marriage After 30 Years Together
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