Celebrity event planner Brian Kelly shares his advice on how to pop the question.
Unlike baking, the recipe for a perfect marriage proposal doesn't exist. Sean Koski, celebrity event planner, recently received the marriage proposal of his dreams from his partner of 10+ years, Brian Kelly. Together, they operate as Ticket2Events, producing luxury events and planning for the likes of those you've seen on TV! After year of experience, Brian kept the daunting task exciting using these his tips below.
Ease into it. Calm your nerves and jitters ahead of time by having your proposal take place at a familiar space where you both will feel comfortable and reminded of fun times from the past. From great memories of the past between movements, you may even notice a confidence boost when it really comes time to pop down on one knee.
Act natural. Try to let the proposal unfold as comfortably as possible, and push through to the finish line by remembering that this will be perfect and you can never go over-the-top.
Ask for assistance. To help with any tasks you're unable to complete without revealing what's to come, ask two or three people who are within your inner circle.
Have a back up plan. Although it may be difficult to imagine the big day going anything but according to planmur, it's important to remember Murphy's law — weather complications or a new Covid scare could happen.
Capture the moment. Hire a professional photographer who specializes in proposal photos for frame-worthy memories of the special moment you've spent so much time perfecting.
I imagined planning the perfect proposal would be the exciting experience I heard about so many times, yet it seemed to teeter at times with a more daunting feeling no one had ever mentioned. I knew that no matter what, if the proposal I wanted to share with my fiancé came from the heart, it’d translate as I intended. However, I wasn't able to let it be just okay, because I wanted to pull off the perfect proposal. So I set out to do just that.
Ever since we met all those years ago at a bar in college, I knew I was going to marry Sean Koski. Even back then, I had a problem convincing myself I'd be able to overcome the butterflies he gives me when he smiles, so like I did the first time I asked him out, I wrote a note on a cocktail napkin in preparedness to ask him to marry me. Being an event producer myself and having planned weddings alongside Sean before, I knew coming from the heart, with the perfect timing while in an intimate and personal setting (and a stunning ring of course), would be the only way I could do it.
I started with a beautiful custom-designed ring, including one for myself to match with Sean. Being a gay couple, there are not very many businesses out there who can help serve as models to follow, so I felt like having a matching ring with Sean would start us off on the right foot: Both making up our own rules to follow while planning and going at more my speed overall. When I needed help designing the rings, I asked 12Fifteen Diamonds, who I knew could figure out the best way for it to be special and unique, a representation of us both. Coming up with the idea that (if Sean said yes) we would have two engagement rings, one for him and one for myself, helped me feel that we could showcase the love we both share and the fact that we are both engaged, without having to wait for wedding bands, too.
After the ring was said and done, the finding the perfect location was next. Since my ideal place to propose to Sean was on the beach, it was important to have a back up plan in case the weather impacted the natural scene. As luck had it, the backup plan was where we ended up finding ourselves, so by enlisting in one of closest friends, fashion blogger @laurenleaderhouse, I was able to create a cover story and have a proposal in her place, all at once! Under the guise of a TikTok video we needed to help film, Sean and I headed to visit Lauren at her home, where the proposal would intimately take place. While she hid upstairs filming the whole thing, I tried to act as normal as possible until it was time for me to whip out the cocktail napkin I had prepared with my note and grow my confidence as I got down on one knee, knowing that I was about to pop the question. Although this is a hard thing to do, sometimes just going with your heart and not having something so rehearsed works out better.
