JtS wrote:

QUOTE:
Lyra, it's more of asking politely if it's ok for you to join their family.

If it helps, I've yet to receive my dowry.

What patriarchal nonsense. Why is it the father's decision? That's just exactly as bad.

Note that the Slovene tradition requires consultation with both parents' families.

I believe I may have even asked if he and his wife thought it was ok.

They should have said 'no' just to see what you would do next.

OK, bear with me on this.

When I first met my wife, I thought we were having a adult casual relationship. My wife went out to the newsagent to get some fags one day and asked if anyone wanted anything. I asked if I could have some fags (we both smoked at this time). When she returned with my Marlboro Lights, I noticed they were open. Inside the lid, she had written "Ask me out or you're dead". Intrigued by such coy romance, I did.

Four years later, my wife was opening her Christmas stocking and, at the bottom, I had wrapped a packet of Marlboro Lights (empty) in which I had put an engagement ring and I had written on the the inside of the lid "Will you marry me"

Pause so you can pass the bucket around

We still have both packets but it will have to wait a while to show our son as we are trying to teach him that smoking is wrong.

Some of the males will already be noticing that I scored a winner there by tying up engagment ring and Chritmas present in one go but, in a story that is too long to go into now, I ended up buying her two more engagment rings

What patriarchal nonsense. Why is it the father's decision? That's just exactly as bad.

I don't think so. It's just to keep the parents family happy, like they have much in the way of input into it. As Dara O'Briain says as the putative father being asked by the wet lettuce boyfriend. "Why are you asking me? Sure she hasn't listened to a word I've had to say for Years. Sure she never asked my permission before she became a WHORE!!!!, Oh she never told you about that did she? well it was when she was younger and just going through a phase."

Tell us about the rings.

Here's how I popped the question. (Old OTF thread.)

Wedding's next May, and approaching with terrifying speed. We've got the venue for the ceremony sorted (the Royal Pavilion in Brighton) but we're still shopping around for the reception/disco.

I count myself as one of the more traditional people on this board (i.e. not a raving commie like most of you red menaces) and I never asked my wife's dad for permission to marry her. I told him I was going to do it on the morning I did so and he said "Well done." Even if he'd refused I'd have done it anyway.

I asked her in Gerrard Street on our way to a relationship anniversary meal at one of the restaurants there. She had worked out I was going to because I'd been rather edgy that day but also because one of my friends texted her about ten minutes earlier saying "Has he given you your anniversary gift yet?" and I obviously wasn't carrying anything gift wrapped. I then spent the meal being stared at suspciously by a Chinese nun, who could obviously feel my Anglican rays drawing a daughter of the Catholic Church into heresy.

We bought the ring in a jeweller's in St Albans (now closed) because I wanted her to choose something she liked. She got me some gold cufflinks as a reciprocal engagement thing.

QUOTE:
Tell us about the rings.

If you mean me, actually it isn't that long. First ring I chose myself (note, this is a big mistake) and bought an 'alternative' engagement ring that was silver and moonstone (her birthstone) because, you know, we aren't into traditional stuff being young and on the edge. Hey, it was a Great Frog ring, not any old tat

After a polite period of time, maybe a day, fiancee informed me that, actually, we were that traditional and actually she would quite like a diamond to show off.

This somewhat revealed the real reason I had bought the original ring because I was poor. However, we went and bought aother one from an antiques market together that had the tiniest tiniest diamond.

After maybe a decade, I realised that she would like something really sparky ( I say realised, she mentioned it constantly) so I got her a replacement white gold and proper diamond one for her 40th. Again, should be a stroke of genius combining both birthday and engagement ring but after having paid for two already, I don't know.

Luckily, the wedding ring was a family one that her Mum gave her

I can't honestly say now whether I'd have given Mrs WOM's parents the heads-up about asking her. In her father's inimitably blunt/tactless way, about 8 weeks into our relationship, he'd said "You know, if you two end up getting engaged, that'd be fine. And I'll give you $10,000 cash and you can elope instead of having a wedding...if you want."

We had the wedding.

I'm just amazed at how many of you are married. I thought Europeans didn't get married anymore. They just had "partners" and raised their children together blissfully just to show us Americans how backward we all are.

That's Quebec you're thinking of. From the Globe & Mail:

"Census figures released yesterday by Statistics Canada show nearly 30 per cent of Quebec couples skip the nuptials and live together, compared with only 12 per cent in the rest of Canada and 8 per cent in the United States."

Reed, we don't need to use our marital status to show how backwards y'all are, we have TV

Bloody hell, Reed, I have been married for 16 years and I am only 41.

Mind you, I was a shit bachelor so I grabbed the chance when I was presented with it.I even moved pretty much straight out of my Mum's into living with my wife (or girlfreind as she was then)

Actually, that was more to do with my parents getting rid of my bed while I was staying out one weekend

Poor UXB gave up asking after the first proposal. It was romantic but rather cheesy - he popped the question when we were in Paris on top of the Eiffel Tower. His divorce hadn't been finalised and I thought he was really only asking me because on the way up I'd joked that I'd been proposed to twice at the top of the Eiffel Tower already and perhaps this would be third time lucky, so when he asked me I (perhaps rather cruelly) replied "Hmm, we'll see. Ask me when you're not married to someone else, eh?". Ouch. The poor chap, etc.

It turned out he was serious apparently, and so he bided his time until the following year when he was legally free and single. Less cheesily this time, we climbed to the top of Vesuvius, walked round to the quiet side of the crater, and sat on a rock in the middle of a cloud. He knelt down beside me and said "this time next year I'm going to bring you back here and marry you".

Swept away by the fact that he'd actually got down on one knee, it didn't occur to me until later that evening that the cheeky bastard hadn't actually asked me to marry him; he'd told me. Probably for the best, given what the first answer had been.