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The Best Wedding-Proposal Stories in 2017

Credit...Tom Bloom

Marriage proposals are made in a variety of ways. Some of the best ones submitted to The New York Times this year included a mother-daughter proposal in Manhattan, a blood-chilling proposal in the Bronx, a royal proposal in Washington and a counterproposal in California.

In Seattle, there was a how-to-find-your-future-husband’s proposal, complete with instructions. Not to be upstaged, there were two theatrical proposals, one in an empty theater in Massachusetts and another on a Broadway stage — and that was just the half of it.

There was no shortage of international proposals, either. In Quebec, one man proposed to another man in the company of man’s best friend, and in Italy, one unscripted proposal left a speechwriter, well, speechless.

Here are 10 of our most engaging stories of 2017.

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Steven DeLuca had proposed to her mother two days prior. Here, he discusses the meaning of the proposal with her 7-year-old daughter.

From the time Mr. DeLuca starting dating Ms. Tang in October 2015, he knew he was part of a package deal that included Wilhelmina, Ms. Tang’s 7-year-old daughter, a tough, unabashedly honest critic who had a say in all things, including Mr. DeLuca’s marriage proposal to her mother.

Exactly a year after his first date with Ms. Tang at Bemelmans Bar in Manhattan, the couple returned there — same corner table, same pianist — and Mr. DeLuca got down on one knee and proposed to Ms. Tang — but he still had some proposing to do.

Two days later, Ms. Tang shared the good news with Wilhelmina, and Mr. DeLuca followed by promptly dropping to one knee, again, this time to explain to Wilhelmina the significance of an engagement ring, “and how it is really about a commitment to one another,” as he said to her. He then surprised Wilhelmina with a tiny ring of her own, made of hearts and diamonds.

”In the same way that the ring I gave to your mother represents my commitment to her,” Mr. DeLuca said to Wilhelmina, “this ring represents my commitment to you.”

That left the outspoken Wilhelmina with just one question: “Are these real diamonds?”

Her mother and Mr. DeLuca were married Sept. 9.

Mr. Alderdice did not want anyone else to know about a secret proposal he planned for Ms. Abugo back in April 2016, so he took an old ring and a picture of her to a jeweler. From that, he picked out a diamond-encrusted double band as an engagement ring he thought would fit her.

A few days later, having enlisted the staff at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx to assist in his plan, he got down on one knee and proposed, with “Marry Me Uzezi” spelled out in wooden letters covered in flowers behind him.

She said yes, but the ring was not as accommodating.

"It didn’t fully fit,” Mr. Alderdice said. “But we had to have the picture of the ring in the proper position with the flowers in the background, so she kind of pushed it on.”

Unbeknown to him, Ms. Abugo’s ring finger was a size 8½. The ring he gave her was a 6½.

A few minutes later, Ms. Abugo realized that the blood had stopped flowing to her finger, which was turning a dark shade of purple, and after trying and failing to remove the ring, they jumped into a cab and headed for the emergency room at Montefiore Medical Center.

“I told him, ‘If you don’t get this ring off soon, I’m going to lose my entire finger,’” Ms. Abugo said, laughing as she recalled the incident. “I told him, ‘I can’t marry you without a ring finger.’”

When they arrived at the hospital, “everyone thought it was hilarious,” Ms. Abugo said.

Though the ring needed to be cut off — leaving her with a scar now hidden by a resized ring — Ms. Abugo’s finger was saved, as was the painfully amusing memory of the day she got engaged.

They were married June 17.

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Ariana Austin and Joel Makonnen.

Mr. Makonnen, an actual prince who happens to be the great-grandson of Haile Selassie, the last emperor of Ethiopia, and Ms. Austin, who is of Guyanese descent and is the maternal granddaughter of a Lord Mayor of Georgetown, the capital of Guyana, were engaged on Valentine’s Day 2014.

Their marriage had been more than a decade in the making when Mr. Makonnen bought a princess-cut diamond ring and showed up at the home of Ms. Austin’s parents with the bauble in one hand and balloons in another.

Perhaps a bit nervous, he knocked too loudly, leading Ms. Austin to think the house was being burglarized. She called her parents, who were returning home from a dinner party.

“She thought somebody was trying to break in,” said Bobby Austin, Ms. Austin’s father. “And it was just the poor guy trying to propose to her.”

Ms. Austin eventually opened the door, letting in her future husband.

“We always seemed to be in different cities following our ambitions and dreams,” Mr. Makonnen said. “But despite those long separations, I felt like I had proposed at exactly the right moment in our lives for us to make such a wonderful commitment to each other.”

Ms. Austin put less of a fairy tale spin on getting engaged to the prince. “It’s about time,” she said.

They were married Sept. 9.

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Megan Prichard, left, and Amanda Rubenstein.

Ms. Prichard and Ms. Rubenstein were engaged to each other twice, in a span of 17 days.

Ms. Rubenstein proposed first, on Dec. 10, 2016, sweeping Ms. Prichard off her feet with a surprise proposal on the beach in Laguna, Calif., complete with a gallery of pictures of their travels together and a guitar player singing their favorite songs. After returning from a trip to Bali on Dec. 27, Ms. Prichard “counter-proposed” as she put it, surprising Ms. Rubenstein with a treasure hunt around their Corona del Mar home that ended with an engagement ring served on a plate with freshly baked cookies.

“It was really important for both of us that we proposed to each other, so that we each had a full say in the matter,” Ms. Prichard said. “She’s the love of my life, and I wanted to be sure she wanted to marry me, just as sure as she needed to know that I truly wanted to marry her.”

They were married July 22 at the Seven Degrees Art Gallery in Laguna Beach, Calif.

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Lisa Bridge and Gilad Berenstein.

Ms. Bridge was sitting at her desk in Seattle one Saturday when she received a card from Mr. Berenstein that featured a pair of matchsticks hugging along with the words “A perfect match.”

The card read: “Hey babe, change of plans for today. Please Uber to the Fairmont Hotel’s Georgian Room for a surprise. Enjoy! Love, G. Please arrive at 2 p.m.”

Her heart racing, she got into the Uber and told the driver, “I think I’m getting engaged.” She arrived at the Fairmont, “shaking slightly,” she said, and “expecting to see Gilad.” Instead, she saw her two closest friends waving her over to join them for tea.

She was soon handed another card, this one adorned with an image of a fluffy white cat in between chocolate and graham crackers that read “I want s’more of you!” Inside was another note: “Hi babe, I hope you enjoyed the tea and stories. I can’t wait for our next tea adventure! Your next surprise awaits you at 1427 5th Ave. You’ll know it when you see it. Love, G.”

She made her way to that address, which turned out to be her favorite nail salon, and there she saw two more friends who had flown in from Dallas. As they chatted, Ms. Bridge was Facetimed by yet another close friend who shared a few memories. As tears streamed down her cheeks, she was given yet another card: “Congratulations for being sexy and intelligent at the same time.”

That card also recalled the night Ms. Bridge helped Mr. Berenstein celebrate his 30th birthday at a nearby favorite restaurant, where she found two more girlfriends, who had flown in from Los Angeles.

Ms. Bridge was soon handed a final card that read: “You are my bucket list.”

The card instructed her to return to the bar where she and Mr. Berenstein had their first date. Once there, she found him holding two glasses of Champagne. He escorted her to a private room with Frank Sinatra songs playing in the background and red roses set on a table for two.

“He looked at me with tears in his eyes,” Ms. Bridge said. “He told me how much he loved me and that he wanted to spend his life with me.”

With no more instructions needed, Mr. Berenstein dropped to one knee and proposed.

They were married Oct. 7.

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Dr. Michael Flaherty and Dr. Danielle Saly.

In June 2016, four years after meeting at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass. — where the groom was completing his intern year, and the bride her third-year medical school rotation in pediatrics — Dr. Flaherty invited Dr. Saly to a purported screening of an independent film at the Regent Theater in Arlington.

Unbeknown to her, he had actually rented the theater just for the two of them to show a 30-minute video he had created of friends and family talking about their relationship.

The owner of the theater, who pretended to be an usher, said to the couple: “Business is really tough, it’s hard being an independent theater, but we actually have two other people coming, so you guys go ahead.”

Just before the movie started, Dr. Flaherty excused himself, but Dr. Saly was still alone when it began. She knew something was in the works when an R rating — “for romance” — appeared on the screen. Then came the movie’s title, “The Making of the Flalys,” a combination of their surnames, and soon after came a parade of family and friends onscreen, including a cameo by her grandparents, who live in Israel.

“I was completely overcome with emotion, laughing one minute, crying the next,” Dr. Saly said. “It was unreal.”

As the final credits rolled, Dr. Flaherty was back in the picture, dropping to one knee to propose.

They were married Nov. 4.

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Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of “Hamilton,” with Leah Michalos, left, and Rachel Pitkin.

Ms. Michalos and Ms. Pitkin also took turns proposing to each other, albeit with a heightened sense of drama.

Ms. Michalos, a theater director, decided to make her pitch on the stage of “Hamilton,” because Ms. Pitkin, a history teacher, had a special affinity for the musical.

Ms. Michalos enlisted the help of a colleague who worked with Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of “Hamilton,” and when the time came for the event, Mr. Miranda led Ms. Michalos and Ms. Pitkin through the backstage of the set. Then, Ms. Pitkin recalled, Mr. Miranda discreetly left them alone on center stage after giving a brief description of Alexander Hamilton’s marriage proposal to Eliza Schuyler.

“I did not get down on one knee,” Ms. Michalos said. “I could not for the life of me remember what I actually said — my heart was coming out of my mouth and pounding in my chest.”

After the couple left the Richard Rodgers Theater, they had a glass of Champagne in a Times Square boîte, and then Ms. Pitkin, rather than going to the restaurant that Ms. Michalos had reserved for their engagement dinner, insisted that the two set off on a different route.

As they neared the Walter Kerr Theater, Ms. Michalos turned to Ms. Pitkin and said: “I don’t know if you know this, but the Walter Kerr, that is the night I first realized I loved you.”

They proceeded about 20 feet farther down the sidewalk and there, in chalk that had only partly been obliterated by rain, Ms. Pitkin had inscribed almost exactly the same words Ms. Michalos had just uttered: “This is where I knew I loved you.”

And, having not known that Ms. Michalos’s proposal would precede it, she’d added her own: “Will you marry me?”

They were married Sept. 16

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Charles Bentley, left, and Drake Carden.

When Mr. Bentley proposed to Mr. Carden in May 2016, he brought along a 3-year-old named Al who carried the ring, which was attached to his bow tie. Al was neither a family member nor family friend. He was, in fact, a terrier mix, the couple’s dog.

“Yes, our dog was wearing a bow tie,” Mr. Bentley said. “Yes, this is ridiculous.”

As it turned out, Mr. Bentley had beaten Mr. Carden to the proposal punch.

“I had planned to propose at the end of the summer,” Mr. Carden said. “We were taking a vacation at the beginning of August in Central Europe, so I was hoping to do it there. He really did just beat me to it.”

As for Mr. Bentley, he never let on that a proposal was in the works.

“I thought he might be plotting something with this romantic weekend away, but he was very calm the entire day, Mr. Carden said. “He takes a lot of pictures so it wasn’t that odd that he set up a tripod to take a photo of us on a timer, so I didn’t think he had anything up his sleeve.”

If only he had searched Al’s bow tie.

They were married May 13.

In September 2017, Mr. Schwerin, who was the director of speechwriting for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, finished helping Mrs. Clinton with her new memoir, “What Happened.” The day after the book was published, he and Ms. Fischer left for a vacation in Italy.

Not usually an avid social planner, Ms. Fischer insisted on choreographing their first full day in Rome. She decided to string together several romantic events — a picnic in the Villa Borghese gardens, a Rossini concert in an old church and dinner in a charming neighborhood trattoria in Trastevere — so there would be a few opportunities to propose.

No moment seemed quite right until the end of the night. After a full day and a delicious dinner, she pulled Mr. Schwerin into a narrow cobblestone side street in Trastevere and got down on one knee. “Will you marry me?” she asked in a bit of a role reversal, rendering the speechwriter momentarily speechless. It took him a minute to realize what was going on, but then he laughed and said yes.

They were married Nov. 24.

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Mansi Snehal Kothari and Sushil Raja Atmakuri.

In December 2015, the couple visited Central Park and stopped at a bench behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art that Mr. Atmakuri’s family had donated in honor of his grandparents — and by virtue of what they both called “a double proposal,” they became engaged there.

A small crowd gathered when Mr. Atmakuri, a gold wedding band in hand, went to one knee to pop the question, but the crowd grew considerably larger, and noisier, when Ms. Kothari, also holding a gold wedding band, took a knee of her own and returned the favor.

“At that point, people started coming over wondering what was going on,” Mr. Atmakuri said. “We are firm believers in gender equality, and I really feel that there is a gender imbalance when it comes to traditional wedding proposals, where the guy also asks the girl if she wants to marry him.

“But I have so much respect for Mansi, I felt she had the right to ask me the same question. Fortunately, we both had the same answer.”

They were married May 29.

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A version of this article appears in print on  , Section ST, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: 10 Great Proposals, and One Detour to the Hospital. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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