When it comes to popping the question, people find all sorts of creative ways to ask “Will You Marry Me”, which don’t always include a diamond engagement ring. Some ways are romantic and some are outright bizarre, but I guess you have to give these guys some credit for ingenuity. Here are five unique and sometimes ridiculous marriage proposal stories that skipped the diamond ring tradition.

1) This one is interesting, I guess, though I’m sure many people would consider it blatantly inappropriate. Now, I assume that most of us wouldn’t think of a funeral as much of a place to ask someone to marry them, but that is precisely how one man decided to propose to his girlfriend. This story was entered into a contest that was looking to find the world’s most romantic marriage proposals. Apparently the man was at his brother’s casket and in order to share this special moment with him, he decided to ask his girlfriend for her hand in marriage atop his coffin.


2) Another odd marriage proposal was made by a man who said he would marry his girlfriend, but only on the condition that she first go through the Army Reserves. According to the man, joining the army would improve her self-esteem.


3) This story is just hilarious. A guy decided that he would write his girlfriend a note asking her to marry him. Alright, so nothing too weird or exciting about that, but just guess where he put that note… In my opinion, there probably couldn’t be any less of a romantic place to put it, but hey, to each their own. When his girlfriend went to change her baby’s diaper, SURPRISE, there it was. (Hopefully the diaper wasn’t too dirty.) 


4) This story actually made it to the “Perfect Proposal” segment on TLC. A guy named Jeff assembled a team of 20 animators to create his very own 5 minute animation as a way of proposing to his girlfriend Natasha. When it was completed, he surprised her by bringing to the Parkway Movie Theatre in Oakland, where they played the animation on the big screen in front of over 100 of their friends and family. You can watch the short below.



5) I found this last one was so brutal it had to be mentioned. Imagine thinking someone wants to marry you and then finding out they want to break up. Well that is exactly what happened to this one poor woman. The Onion put out an article in February of 2003, when they heard Amanda Gentry’s story. Her boyfriend Wilson Crandall had been acting very strange and erratic with her. He was in law school and studying for the bar exam. He told her that once school was over he had something important to talk to her about; something that concerned their future. Having been together for many years, she thought that the time was finally coming to move forward in their relationship. Well, you just imagine the surprise she got when the “talk” finally did occur and he told her that the relationship was over. Brutal.