My fiance and I were at our favorite snow resort to spend the day snowboarding together. After putting on our boots and gear, some of his buddies (all of whom are much better snowboarders than I) showed up and told him about a new cliff they found. He asked if I would mind if he went to check it out. I said it was fine and hurried to catch my friends. This was pretty common so I didn't really think anything of it.

I rode the chair lift alone and found a group of friends waiting at the top of the run. They all had their skis and boards off and were comparing the designs on the bottom of their boots. Yes, it's weird but so are they so, once again, i didn't think anything of it.

They asked me what the bottom of my boots looked like so i unstrapped and showed them. As I was trying to balance on my grounded foot a man come up to me and handed me a rose. Confused, I smiled and took it. Before I could say anything he took off down the mountain. I turned back to my friends and another man came up and handed me a rose. And another, and another.

Finally, my fiance walked up to me in a tuxedo, holding a dozen roses in one hand and a ring box in the other. On one knee he asked me to spend the rest of my life with him! I said YES!

It was absolutely perfect! I couldn't have imagined anything better!

A. H., Salmon, Idaho

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First, let me explain that since childhood I have been a huge fan of Bill Cosby (I even have a poster of him in my bedroom).

Dane and I had been dating for almost three years. We had talked about getting married, but we were in the middle of graduate school and didn't know exactly where we were heading in our careers.

We had talked about putting engagement off for a year, but I was pushing to move in together. He also was interested, but he was stuck in a lease.

He took me on a trip to L.A. because I had never been to the west coast. As soon as we got to the airport we were walking to the rental car booth but, on the way, there was a chauffeur holding a sign with our names on it. He had a limo pick us up!

We got in the limo and drove a small restaurant—a beautiful little Italian place. I thought, because of the limo surprise, that this might be where he pops the big question so, naturally, I was excited.

In the middle of the meal, Bill Cosby walked in and I couldn't believe it. He began walking to our table and I my heart started racing and I started shaking. He stopped at our table and kneeled down next to me and said, "Dane wants to marry you but he wanted to be sure you said yes, so he asked me to do it."

I screamed and hugged Mr. Cosby before I even hugged my now fiancee! I could've died.

P. P., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

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We had been dating several years and were living together. One day out of the blue he had taken me to a jewelry store. I thought we were there to look for a present for his mom's birthday. As it turned out, he wanted to look at engagement rings, which really caught me off guard because we hadn't even talked about getting married before.

Shortly after that happen he started acting uninterested in marriage.   He was what I always refer to as "pulling a Chandler" in reference to the TV show "Friends." He would go so far as to say "I don't think I'll ever get married."

So here I am, thinking what the heck are we even doing?   One evening he told me that I needed to leave. I was so confused. He said, "Why don't you go over to your grandma's house or something?" trying to get me to leave the house. It was the strangest thing. I immediately thought the worst, like he had to be cheating on me or something.   But I left anyways, but stayed close by and drove by the house a few times to see if someone would stop by. No one ever did and eventually he called my cell phone and told me to come home, so I did.

When I arrived, the sun was setting and the house was dimly lit.   The way it was outside, you'd need a light to see. I walked inside the house and noticed on the floor in front of me a path of votive candles and in the middle there were Hershey's kisses.   I called out to him, but there was no answer so I followed the path through the house to the bathroom.   He had taken the shower curtain down and there were votive candles all around the edge of the tub and the tub was full of water and rose petals.   On the edge of the tub was a flower shop card with my name on it of course and it read "Now that I have showered you with roses and kissed the ground you walk on, will you marry me? Turn around."

When I turned around (crying of course) he was behind me, down on one knee, with my beautiful ring.   It was the most romantic moment of our relationship!

R. McG., Amarillo, Texas

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My fiance is going to be a teacher, so she's building up a collection of children's books for her classroom. I had been telling her for a while how I really wanted to buy her a book for her room.

I planned a picnic for "just the two of us" in a beautiful park in our town. Little did she know that two of our good friends were there as well, hiding in the bushes and taking pictures.

When we first arrived at the park, my fiance, Hannah, saw our friends jump behind a tree and was at first suspicious. Luckily, she just figured they were "fooling around" behind there and let it be.

I was a nervous wreck as I laid out the picnic. My hands were trembling and I kept dropping the food all over the place. Finally I knew I just had to do it before making a complete fool of myself.

I pulled out a children's book that I had written for her and made spiral-bound. The story was of two birds (their first names a variation of our middle names) who met and became immediate friends. I read the story out loud to her. The last line of the story was, "And they lived happily ever after."

I turned the page and read, "Will you spend forever with me?"

She said, "Is this for real?" So I pulled out the ring and she said YES!

M. H., Sacramento, California

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Three siblings' proposals as submitted by 'mom.' — ed.

1) My daughter's 's boyfriend picked her up from work. She thought they were going on a bay cruise but played along when he blindfolded her because it was supposed to be a surprise. They drove to San Francisco.

He actually took her to an empty Giants baseball park. After leaving her blindfolded on the street corner for a minute while he checked in, they were led to the field where he got down on one knee. Mom, Dad and brother were there, too, to witness and video the event.

He handed her an armfull of roses and then Mom took off the blindfold and he popped the question. When they hugged after she said yes you could hear the workers up in the stands and in the outfield clapping and cheering.

2) Not to be outdone, our younger son was next. He had arranged to take his girlfriend out to breakfast and then on a small plane ride over the coast with his brother and brother's friend (the pilot). While they were going to breakfast, Mom, Dad, sister, brother-in-law, girlfriend's sister and a friend all traveled to to the beach where they went about putting out 15-foot high letters in black plastic on the beach that read "MARRY ME?"

We had forgotten the plastic question mark so, after getting the rest of the letters laid out and embedded in the sand, we laid down and made the question mark with our bodies. We had lots of fun with other people on the beach trying to read the large letters from up close.

We had about a half hour wait before the plane flew over. He popped the question in the air when she read the message on the beach. Other son was the photographer for the event both in the plane and taking pictures of the message on the beach.

Afterwards we met up for lunch at a local restaurant.

3) Finally our older son was ready to propose to his girlfriend on Christmas Eve. It was hard to come up with an equally spectacular idea. He choose to write out the question with three rows of white Christmas lights, each row four feet high for a total of 12-feet high and strung out 30 feet across the backyard. It read,

DAWN RAE
WILL YOU
MARRY ME?

What made it even better was that we had dinner first and then her family came over for dessert all the while keeping her away from any windows, not an easy feat since it was visable from any window across the back of the house...kitchen, dining room and family room, as well as front yard when she arrived in the car. After her parents arrived we then had to turn on the lights after getting her into position to see it.

We still have one daughter yet to marry and so it will be interesting to see what her proposal will be like. I think they were all fantastic.

M. S., Hercules, California

Haden and I had been dating about four years. We love to be outdoors and explore so when he said he had an "adventure" planned I wasn't really suspicious, just excited.

We got up that morning and he said we had to be at the small local airport at eleven. When we arrived at the airport we boarded a small plane with an adorable little captain named Otis.

While we were taking off he put a blindfold on me (much to my shagrin) because he said he wanted our destination to be a surprise.

About twenty minutes later we landed and I attempted to take off the blindfold (and was quickly batted away). He picked me up and carried me out of the plane like I was five years old.

When he put me back on my feet he told me to take of the blindfold. When I pulled it back I was standing in the middle of a beautiful meadow and my family (parents and all six older siblings) and my best friends were standing there holding up sequential signs that said, "Lena Will You Marry Me?" I turned around and he was on on knee with a beautiful ring (his grandmother's square cut in white gold).

Immediately I started to cry and said yes. It was a wonderfully creative and special way to include the people we love in our special moment!

L. S., Nashville, Tennessee

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I called my then girlfriend (now fiance) and told her a friend of ours wanted to meet up for dinner (which was normal, we always have dinner with him). She said okay and I got to planning.

I gathered ten of our closest friends and had them meet at our favorite restaurant — BJs in Huntington Beach, California. I called ahead and reserved the back room of the restaurant and had everyone show up at 5pm.

We arrived at 5:30pm and told the manager we were there for my reservation. As we were walking back to the table I could barely keep a straight face. When we got to the back room her smiling face quickly turned to complete shock. I put my hands on her shoulders and said, "Everyone is here for a very important reason."

Just as she turned around to look at me I got on my knee and took the ring out of my back pocket. She immediately began to cry as I explained to her how much I loved her and how I couldn't live the rest of my life without her. I asked her to marry me and the entire restaurant stood up and clapped for us. It was so loud I couldn't even hear her say "I love you" in my ear as she knelt down to me and we hugged.

I put the ring on her finger and as we stood up everyone was yelling their congratulations to us from across the restaurant. I think we hugged for a good 2-3 minutes and everyone continued to clap until we sat down. It was so much more than I expected and she was ecstatic after she got over being in front of so many people!

I had it set up to have champagne at the table and proposed toasts and sat down to eat some much needed food! The entire night was amazing and it was almost impossible to keep that big of a secret from her for over a week but it was well worth it!

D. P., Huntington Beach, California

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Before we were romantically involved, my fiance and I were best friends and had been for a long time. We were very close and people always joked about or asked us if we were dating. We always smiled and said no.