Proposal 101: What Works, What Doesn’t

As a girl who also got proposed to this year (cue the Agora Hills lyrics) in the same timeline as Taylor Swift, Charles Leclerc, Dua Lipa, and Finneas, I’ve been very ecstatic about the sparkly ring on my finger. Being in your 20s truly is a canon event, where your Instagram homepage now consists of three recurring themes: someone getting engaged, someone getting married, and someone going to Japan. And this year, in particular, has been the Super Bowl of proposals.

The internet has only added fuel to the fire. From Taylor’s old mine brilliant-cut diamond to Georgina Rodriguez’s oval-cut boulder, we’ve all spent months playing jewellery designer, event planner, and stylist from our cosy couches. After being a self-acclaimed critic online (and getting proposed to IRL) I think I finally know a thing or two about what actually works.

What Works

Pick the Ring Together

The proposal can be a surprise but the ring shouldn’t be a jump scare. You may think you know your partner’s taste, but lifelong jewellery is less 'vibe check' and more 'precision engineering'. Go ring-window-shopping together, make a date out of it, let them point at things with conviction. You’ll learn very quickly whether they’re a solitaire loyalist or secretly into bezel settings. Once you know the broad strokes, you can still keep the final pick under wraps.

Make It Feel Like You

Whether you’re planning a grand gesture or an intimate moment, let it look like your relationship — not the algorithm’s idea of romance. Internet aesthetics peak fast, but authenticity ages well. The right proposal feels like slipping into a conversation you’ve both been having for years: easy, intuitive, and completely yours.

Ditch the Quest for Perfection

Your partner won’t remember if the roses formed a heart or a slightly lopsided blob — they’ll remember your voice wobbling halfway through the speech you promised you wouldn’t overthink. Don’t get so busy choreographing the ambience that you forget to actually propose. The charm is in the emotion, not the props.

What Doesn’t Work

Putting Your Partner on the Spot

A crowd-averse person at a stadium, a sea-sick partner on a boat, a heat-hater on a beach in May — you can already feel the “no, no, no” energy, right? Anything that makes your partner uncomfortable turns the moment from tender to theatrical. The setting should hold the moment gently, not bully it into existence.

Asking Without Ever Talking About Marriage

A proposal can be a surprise; the idea of marriage shouldn’t arrive like a plot twist. If you’ve never discussed it, you’re not creating romance, you’re staging an emotional jump scare. One honest conversation beforehand won't kill the magic.

Hiding the Ring in Food

Please retire the ring-in-champagne era. No one dreams of saying yes with a sticky, sugar-coated diamond or the threat of accidentally swallowing their engagement ring. Some traditions can stay in 2004; this is one of them.

Piggybacking on Someone Else’s Event

Birthdays, weddings, concerts, festivals — anything where the mood, timing or decibel levels are beyond your control. When your proposal fights for attention with someone else’s milestone (or a DJ who refuses to lower the bass), the emotional clarity gets diluted. 

The Bottom Line

If you take one thing, let it be this: don't ignore what you already know about your partner. Everything else — the setting, the speech, the nerves, will fall into place!