I don’t fantasize about wearing a white dress. I don’t have a Pinterest board called “My Wedding,” filled with pictures of Labradors wearing bowties and carrying the ring. I’ve never logged into a wedding site to start pretend-planning my wedding. (Fun fact: my best friend has. Her fiance’s name is “Edward.” Yes, like a certain sparkly vampire.)
But I can’t stop watching public wedding proposal videos.
The first time I ever saw a video of a man propose to a woman in a crowded theater, I thought it was cheesy and tacky. Why does the world need to see such an intimate, romantic gesture? Why aren’t bended knees, roses and glasses of bubbly enough? Timeless love should not be expressed via movie trailer.
That attitude lasted until college. By the end of winter quarter finals week, I’d earned a black belt in procrastination. I watched every cat video on Youtube. I read every Harry Potter list on Buzzfeed. I could even name all fifty states on Sporcle. Clearly, I needed to step up my game.
Then I discovered a video where a man proposes at Disneyland. On The Ellen Show. In a Home Depot. It was all over.
The best moment is when the people being proposed to realize what’s happening. Their eyes bug out, they clamp their hands over their mouth and they start simultaneously laughing and crying. I get a rush of warm, fuzzy estrogen every time. Here it is! Documented proof that love is real!
Or that people love to flash gaudy rings and fit into heteronormative cultural norms. But whatever.
As with everything great, there is the dark, cringe-inducing side of public marriage proposals. If you’re even the littlest bit anxious about what your ladyfriend or manfriend will say, maybe it’s not the best idea to ask them on live television.
And, on the other side of the equation, proposers now face way more pressure to make their proposals epic. Very few people, for example, could probably pull off an entire surprise proposal and wedding – on the same day. Society definitely does not need any more unrealistic expectations surrounding love and marriage. We shouldn’t be taught to expect that our future spouses will be expert dancers too.
Yet with all my rationalization of why public proposal videos are ridiculous, I can’t help but love them. The proposers often tailor their proposal to the individual tastes of their significant others. They use favorite shared activities or the place they first met. The proposal is a portrait of how much they know and love their partner’s idiosyncrasies, and how much hope they have for their future life together.
The videos are about community, family. The proposer wants the partner to feel surrounded by people who want the best for them, even if those people were strangers just five minutes ago. In an increasingly jaded world, what’s so wrong with public celebrations of love?
Do I want a public proposal? Hell no. I’ve tweeted four times since May. In an age where employers can find your passive aggressive Facebook statuses about your eighth grade boyfriend, I don’t need everybody to watch the greatest gesture of love I’ll ever experience. But I can still revel in the love of people who do want to share their eternal commitment with the world.
Supposedly, anyways. Half of these people will probably, eventually get divorced. But at least they’ll always have the video.