Wedding Proposals

1. Taking a full-page advert in the local paper

2. Getting an entire Tube carriage to sing ‘Lovely Day’

3. Lighting up a city office building with a heart

4. Taking girlfriend to cinema then showing a ‘will you marry me’ trailer

5. Getting Tom Cruise to pop the question for you

All very clever I’m sure, but what’s wrong with the good old-fashioned method?

You know the sort of thing. The sheepish cough. The high-pitched voice. The grass-stained knee

As much as we admire the skydivers, flashmobbers and building-lighter-uppers, don’t you hanker after the elegant, perfectly-worded, stiff upper-lipped declarations from days of yore?

There are, of course, caddish proposals and there are lovely ones. Here is a caddish one, from the unscrupulous Mr Elliot in Jane Austin’s Persuasion. He is a cousin of his intended victim, Anne, hence this slithery approach:

In Gone with the Wind, Rhett was a little more direct with his quarry:

“I’m going away tomorrow for a long time and I fear that if I wait till I return you’ll have married someone else with a little money. So, I thought, why not me and my money? Really, Scarlett, I can’t go all my life waiting to catch you between husbands”.

Sometimes you get a bland proposal. But if you do that in an Oscar Wilde play, especially The Importance of Being Earnest, there is a very good chance your intended will come back with a pearler.

Jack Worthing: “You are quite perfect Miss Fairfax”.

Gwendolyn Fairfax: “Oh, I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for developments, and I intend to develop in many directions”.

And our favourite?

In P G Wodehouse’s sublime novel Leave It to Psmith, the eponymous character proposes to Eve Halliday. The slight drawback is that she thinks he is a Canadian poet called Ralston McTodd who has run away from her best friend. Despite that handicap, they go for a moonlit walk. Psmith, gesturing at the stars with “a kindly yet not patronising wave of his hand” gets down to business.

Eve is not impressed.

Give me the same chance you would an olive. It doesn’t get much more romantic than that.

As we discovered at the beginning however, matrimony is not quite the force it was in the days when every novel and movie was obliged by law to end with a betrothal.

So, who’s to blame? Hugh Grant, that’s who.

Here’s his anti-proposal from Four Weddings and a Funeral:

That came out in 1994. Marriage has been in decline ever since.

If you still fancy popping the question then where to choose? In a recent survey, The London Eye was considered the most popular place to propose. This was closely followed by the Lake District and Llanddwyn Island in Wales.

We know which of the three we would choose but if the thought of pulling out a diamond ring on a giant wheel tickles your fancy then why not book a weekend break in London for the both of you? Our closest hotel is Best Western Corona which puts next you to all the sights and expensive shops where you can treat your loved one to something special.