A professional proposal planner has offered signs that reveal whether a relationship is built to last or not.
Daisy Amodio has helped over 5,000 couples seal their engagements, with her plans ranging from million pound extravaganzas to staged police pranks, she's done it all to help couples over the years.
The UK's wedding industry alone is worth a jaw-dropping £14.7 billion, highlighting how vast the landscape is, as Amodio spotted an opportunity for business.
Advert
Amodio is an event planner who runs 'The Proposers', the world's first luxury proposal company, established in 2011.
She stated that everyone 'wants that incredible story or money shot' that they can boast about online in the age of social media.
Packages at the company range from about £1,000 to the hundred thousands region, depending on how lavish you want to go, with the most expensive proposal done by the company sitting at near £1 million, with the couple's names being projected into the water at Niagara Falls.
Advert
Through her years of experience, she has also learned about love, and more importantly, how to spot these red flags in relationships.
Lack of enthusiasm and commitment
Amodio says that it's easy to spot a red flag like this, explaining: “You can tell when people are just proposing because they think they should; you get the sense that it’s not really their choice and that they’re just going through the motions.”
She contrasted this with the example of high-profile footballers wanting to propose to people they have just started dating, even at one point needing to turn down a 17-year-old boy going to a different university to his girlfriend.
Advert
I guess there is such a thing as being too eager.
When the groom has no idea
The proposal planner admits that she sometimes has to deal with clients that are looking for a 'cookie-cutter' proposal, bringing a photo from Pinterest and nothing else.
Advert
“Around 25% of the grooms we work with will see a picture online and say ‘I want that one’,
“We’ll ask if they want to change the colours or flowers to their girlfriend’s favourite and they’ll say 'no'. They want it just as it comes," she revealed.
Amodio said that a sign of a weaker relationship is where the green seems to have almost no idea about what his future wife actually likes, with her team needing to collect information from social media to work out hobbies, interests and personality traits to weave into the proposal.
She also told the story of a man who gave her nothing to work with, but she came up with the idea of framing the timeline of their relationship by taking posts off Instagram based on dates.
Advert
His fiancée loved it, and he took all the credit, although she did take all the money.
She has also dealt with grooms who send them multi-tabbed spreadsheets, but it turns out that this is a green flag as it shows that they care - as she labels those with a 'lethargic' approach as a cause for concern.
Negative reactions from the bride
This might be a given, but Amodio says that the bride-to-be's reactions are very telling on how the relationship may go.
“Often we’re hiding or listening through the door, waiting to hear that excited scream but you don’t always get it.
“Sometimes there’s just silence, which can be very awkward. If someone is very shocked, the room can feel quite hostile to walk into, even when we’re delivering champagne to say congratulations.”
One groom planned an elaborate fake job interview for his now-wife, made her study for months, hired an actor to be the company's 'director' to ask odd questions, then played a promotional video that was really her future husband telling her the reasons why he loved her, before breaking in and getting on one knee - and she loved it.
Another plan involved an acted-out police arrest, with the bride-to-be being arrested by a fake cop as she had oregano planted on her, and she was horrified until the groom got out on one knee - which the future wife called the 'best thing ever'.
Grooms that fail to centre their spouses in the proposal
Amodio says this can 'raise alarm bells', remembering the story of a groom who performed Bruno Mars classic 'Marry Me' in Covent Garden with 40 dancers and a thousand on-lookers, while his bride was overwhelmed and embarrassed.
She eventually said yes, but ran off as she was really shy and couldn't believe it was done in such a public manner.
This particular couple are happy, though Amodio says that she would always challenge people to think about what their partners would want and enjoy.
The biggest green flag
Amodio says that money or the most 'romantic' place in the world is not important, all that's important is who individualised and personal the idea behind the proposal is.
Recalling the proposal from one adult star to another, she said that it was one of her earliest clients, and they simply wanted a room filled with petals, candles, a ‘Will you marry me?’ sign and pictures of them both naked on display.
But it worked a treat, because they knew what worked for each other.
"It just goes to show: what works for one couple won’t work for another. Though I am glad that the proposals we work on now involve a bit more clothing,” she concludes.
Topics: Weddings, Sex and Relationships, Community
Joshua Nair