10 Cool and Creative Marriage Proposals

Whatever your opinion of flashy, big-production proposals, you have to admit that someone who puts that kind of effort into asking a simple question is someone who really cares about the answer. Personally, I still get all sentimental about the Hollywood ideal of screaming your love from the rooftops, no matter the consequences. Here are ten proposals that you won't soon forget.

1. Comics

Jim asked Julie to marry him by creating a website with comics drawn of their lives together. The narrative tells how they "met cute" online, started a puppet theater, and battled Jim's cancer, and leads to an illustrated proposal. A video of her reaction has been added at the end. Warning: this will tug at your heartstrings.

2. Muppets

Sid Ceaser proposed to Sara Prindiville as a Muppet. Really. He has been a Muppet fan all his life. When the time came, Sid ordered custom designed Muppets that resembled the couple and produced a film about them. It was shown along with the previews at a theater he took Sara to. Of course, she recognized who the Muppets were as soon as she saw them. And she said yes! Afterward, Sid posted the story of how the film came about, photographs of the happy couple, and outtakes and behind-the-scenes footage of the project. They will tie the knot on September 10th.

3. Harry Potter

Redditor trehlo bought two paperback copies of the book Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. He used an Exacto knife to hollow out one copy and secured an engagement ring inside, then presented the book to his girlfriend as a gift. She, a die-hard Potter fan, opened the book, found his surprise, and accepted the ring and proposal. He then gave her the unharmed copy of the book as well.

4. Star Trek

No one knows who is behind this engagement ring presented with a pun, but we believe the woman holding the box in this picture may have accepted it. When Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the USS Enterprise in the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation says "Engage," you are expected to "Make it so."

5. Super Mario

April is a big Super Mario fan. So when Silvas decided to pop the question, he constructed a Mario World in his living room, complete with a hanging question block. Then he had her "pop the question," literally, which sprung the engagement ring. See the whole sequence at YouTube.

6. Onstage (with Robots!)

Chicago actress Nina O'Keefe starred in the spring production of the play Heddatron, which is about a woman who is kidnapped by robots. Her boyfriend, Erik Schroeder, works for a different theater company, but was called on stage for the curtain call because it was his 30th birthday. However, that was just a ruse. The robots from the play directed the action as Erik pulled out a ring and proposed to Nina in front of the audience. After which the robots serenaded the happy couple. The proposal was captured on video.

7. Twitter

The first known marriage proposal by Twitter happened on March 2, 2008 when Greg Rewis proposed to Stephanie Sullivan. She replied with a Tweet of her own, accepting the offer. Since then, many online geeks have sealed the deal on Twitter.

8. In The Sand

A mysterious sand art installation was spotted at Ocean Beach, California in April. An elaborate pattern contained the words, "Will you marry me Kelly?" After the pictures were posted at the San Francisco 7x7 magazine blog, readers identified the couple. The sand imprint was created by artist Andres Amador, who was commissioned by Jason Fordley, who "might well be the most romantic man in San Francisco." The question was directed to Kelly Riplinger, who only saw the huge message when the couple climbed to the top of a nearby hill. She said, "Yes." The proposal was followed by a city tour, dinner, and a beach party with their friends. Photo by Jamie Shiller.

9. Particle Accelerator

Just last weekend, Dave Mosher asked Kendra Snyder for her hand in marriage. Both of them are science journalists, so Dave conspired to make it the most awesomely nerdy proposal ever. Kendra was called to the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider of the Brookhaven National Laboratory to check out a possible story about a strange crystal found in the collider. She was taken inside the particle accelerator, which was offline for maintenance, where she found out the mysterious crystal was, in fact, a diamond engagement ring. The presentation was caught on video.

10. Movie Theater

Matt spend quite a bit of time preparing a movie trailer to be shown at the local theater while he was on a date with his unsuspecting girlfriend Ginny. He hired filmmaker Michael Escobar to direct the trailer, in which he asked her father for permission to marry, then ran to the theater to present the ring. Ginny's friends and family were in the audience, also unbeknownst to her. Her reaction was caught on video, and added to the trailer for the internet version.