A fancy dinner and dropping to one knee alone hasn't been considered adequate for marriage proposals for some time. As if the fear of commitment didn't register as sinister enough, now the person in the relationship who is taking that leap and making the actual proposal has the pressure to make sure it's brilliant, unique, thorough, and—obviously—worthy of going viral online for the world to see. Some folks have taken note of these newly raised standards in marriage proposals (which are, in case you can't detect the sarcasm in my words, completely ridiculous) and have gone so far as to recruit celebrities to help with a proposal, while other take pilgrimages to the flagship Starbucks storefront to bookend a meet-cute story. Although some less grandiose proposals do happen, they're far less common. Now we see this man, Dean, propose to his girlfriend, Jennifer, in a way that is definitely nothing short of game-changing.
Dean videotaped himself holding up proposals scrawled on a whiteboard every day for a whole year. With the assistance of Jennifer's family on her birthday, he led her onto the beach in Aruba where they were all vacationing. Once there, Jennifer took a seat and was asked to wear earplugs and watch something. As soon as the video starts, you can see Jennifer's face change dramatically. The camera pans out to catch family members on the beach happy-crying as she absorbs the footage, showing Dean mouthing along to Pharrell in stitched scenes. AND THEN, the video shows text that reads, "turn around." See if you can make it through without feeling at least a little misty (and bonus points if you count all the hairstyle phases he goes through during the year).
HE IS STILL HOLDING HER SNOTTY TISSUE WHEN HE DROPS TO ONE KNEE. Congrats to the happy couple! And congrats to Dean who absolutely got more buff during that 365-day span. (I guess congrats to Jenn, too, who gets to enjoy the fruits of that effort.)
Image: Antonioguillem/Fotolia
