This Marriage Proposal Took a Year to Make
Long-term, epic proposals that take months or even a year to plan are becoming a trend. (Photo: Getty Images)
Grab some tissues, romantics, because the latest proposal video to go viral will certainly activate those tear ducts. Josh Schmitz of Chicago wrote out proposals and love notes to girlfriend Danielle Roesch on a whiteboard every day — for a year.
He showed the edited video of messages to her last Friday in front of family and friends at the Adler Planetarium, according to WGNtv.com. The last message in the video directs her to meet him at Lake Michigan, in the same place she’d taken the Tinder profile pic that first attracted him, where he got down on one knee on rose-petal-strewn pavement and proposed one more time.
One of the elements that strikes us as most romantic about this 21-minute video is the fact that often Schmitz is in his grubby work clothes, pausing in the middle of operating heavy machinery to show the board with notes like, “Will you be the girl to grow old with me?” “You’re the most amazing person I know!” and “Will you marry me?” The contrast of macho setting and sweet sentiment — especially if you imagine him asking co-workers for help filming — makes this effort seem even more personal.
“My intentions were never for anything to ever come of this,” Schmitz told NBC Chicago of the video’s sudden fame. “It was for her to see and for me to show her how much I love her and how much I think about her. It’s nice to see people who appreciate a good story. Maybe it’ll inspire somebody to have the next very creative proposal.”
Schmitz isn’t the first to propose this way. In January 2015, Dean Smith made a similar video, featuring the same whiteboard concept and similar shots of himself eating breakfast or getting ready for work. He cut the video with footage of his girlfriend, Jennifer, watching it in front of her family on her birthday trip to Aruba, to much Internet approval. Also last year, Ray Smith of Grimsby, U.K., used a similar concept, taking 148 selfies with his girlfriend, who couldn’t see his hidden notes asking her to marry him.
“What makes [these proposals] seem romantic to some people is that you know their significant other was planning and putting in an effort for their marriage proposal for 365 days,” Michele Velazquez, owner of the marriage proposal planning company the Heart Bandits, tells Yahoo Style. “Most people don’t plan that long.”
At the same time, one wonders if the recipients of these proposals might be privately wishing their boyfriends had just asked them immediately.
“I do feel the same effect on someone can be done with a proposal that took only 30 days or so to plan,” Velazquez notes. “Some women will probably certainly be thinking ‘OMG, I wish he proposed a year ago.’ But not everyone is in a rush to get engaged either.”
Velazquez had a client who spent three-and-a-half years folding 1,000 paper cranes before finally asking his girlfriend to marry him, so she’s familiar with this long game.
One thing future proposers might consider is hiring a better editor for their videos, however. “My only complaint is that the video is over 20 minutes long, and no proposal should last that long,” Velazquez says. “When you’re watching that, you are going to feel like, 'OK, you can propose now,’ at about two minutes.”
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