Marriage proposal idea
The Cart Return
Ask by the cart return with the groceries still in the trunk.
- Cost
- $0-20
- Effort
- easy
- Best for
- the partner who would panic at a restaurant with a violinist
The idea
Do the grocery run you do every week. Load the trunk, walk the cart back together, and on the way to the driver's door, stop walking. Ask them right there in the lot, with the ice cream going soft.
There is no production here for them to see through. Nobody has been acting strange for three weeks, there is no reservation, no hike, no candles, and that absence is the point you are making out loud. You are not asking for a special version of them on a special day, you are asking for the regular one.
The only thing to get right is saying why it is a parking lot. If you skip that, it can read as an afterthought. One sentence about picking the most ordinary moment on purpose turns it from lazy into the whole argument.
What to say
“I know this is a parking lot. That's sort of the point, because this is what we actually do, and I like it more than any dinner I could have booked. I don't want the dressed up version of you, I want the one arguing about store brand pasta on a Tuesday. Will you marry me?”
Say it slower than feels natural. The pause after it is the whole moment, so let it sit there.
What you'll need
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Step by step
- 1Pick a normal shopping trip, not a holiday one.
- 2Stay completely normal through the store. Do not get weird in the cereal aisle.
- 3Load the trunk and walk the cart back together.
- 4Stop between the cart return and the car and turn to face them.
- 5Say why you picked here before you ask.
- 6Drive home and let them call whoever they want to call.
Plan the rest of it
Full Blueprint
Want the whole thing planned down to the minute?
The idea above is the shape of the day. The Blueprint is the rest of it, built around your person and the place you picked.
- A run of show with real times, from the morning until the toast
- The speech, written in your words, with the part to memorize marked
- A shot list for whoever is filming, so they know where to stand
- A supplies checklist with what to buy and when to buy it
- A rain plan, because outdoor asks lose to weather more than anything else
Building the plan is free. The Blueprint is $14.99, added to the plan once you have one you like.
Plan one like this, built around your person
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