Over-the-top proposal stunts had their moment (thanks to YouTube), but now couples are leaning towards smaller, more intimate gatherings with close family and friends. “No one wants the price tag of a flash mob. There’s been a backlash against them; [clients] don't want something huge and Âgiant,” says Sarah Pease, founder of New York-based Brilliant Event Planning.
Instead, boyfriends (with the help of proposal planners like Pease) are personalizing the event with special details. At the Trump SoHo New York, the executive chef created a custom menu for a six-course meal for one couple, while the event team built a flower arch framing the view from SoHi, the hotel’s event space, which features floor-to-ceiling windows. Another newly engaged pair got lucky at a casino night with gourmet small bites and cocktails. For one proposal, love poems chosen by the fiancé to celebrate the couple’s relationship covered the table at a private dinner with family members who were waiting in the wings while he popped the question.
Some are even using the day to start a new tradition, such as a time capsule, which carries through to each of the couple’s big life moments, like their wedding day, when they buy a home together, and when they have a child, Pease says.
“Men are just as much into planning as women,” Pease says, and many are choosing a classic romantic setting with lots of flowers and candles. For one such proposal, “the temperature of the room went up 10 degrees because of the candles,” she says.
![For the after-party, Event Eleven built three 30-foot pagodas and hung 300 lanterns from the ceiling. They also brought in a 20-foot-tall bonsai tree and a variety of 30-foot red maples, along with other greenery and foliage. '[It all] helped create the organic atmosphere and helped transport guests into a gardenlike room,' said Schubert.](https://img.bizbash.com/files/base/bizbash/bzb/image/2024/02/Shogun.41_f.65dba8f23433b.png?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
