Proposing in public can sometimes be tricky. There can be variables that even the most meticulous planners won’t be able to control and foresee. Still, 39% of American couples claimed they had a public proposal in 2025. But I doubt that any of them went downhill as fast as this one.
This guy was ready to pop the question during a Valentine’s dinner. But, after a hilarious mix-up, his ring ended up at another couple’s table, resulting in an incredibly awkward “OMG Yes!” The guy didn’t have any choice but to interrupt, but later started wondering whether he had made the whole thing even more awkward.
A guy planned the perfect Valentine’s proposal for his GF at a fancy restaurant
Image credits: mstandret (not the actual photo)
But the restaurant staff messed up and the ring ended up at another couple’s table
Image credits: LightFieldStudios (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Queasy-Impact-2981
Proposals involving food are often bound to go off the rails
We’ve all probably seen the scene in a rom-com where a girl discovers an engagement ring in a slice of cake, jumps up in joy and yells: “Yes!” Films present restaurant proposals and hiding the ring in food as the most romantic ideas possible. But, as is evident from this story, they can go sideways pretty often.
Experts say that the most important element of any public proposal is to make sure that your partner prefers it. This wasn’t a problem for the guy in this story, as he mentions that a proposal somewhere in public, champagne, and good food was exactly what his girlfriend had told him she wanted.
Proposals involving food establishments and foods are notorious for going off the rails. In 2009, a woman swallowed her engagement ring that was presented to her in a Wendy’s Frosty. In 2023, a Kenyan woman ate her proposal ring that was put in her plate of pilau. A fellow Redditor has also shared his story of how his girlfriend almost choked on the engagement ring hidden in a cupcake.
The moral of the story seems to be: don’t put engagement rings in food! As Jeff Witzig, the manager of the one-Michelin-star restaurant Topolobampo in Chicago, told The Takeout, rings in desserts are just messy. Even wrapping the ring in plastic, as he’s seen some couples do, is a no-no. “Having a plastic-wrapped ring in a piece of cake at the end—is that really the kind of mechanics you want to go through?” he says, “Keep the ring in the box.”
Image credits: pressfoto (not the actual photo)
A proposal in public is 1.7 times more likely to fail than a private one
A lot of proposals nowadays happen in public places. But does that mean that people want their proposals to take place in public? It seems that some are just caving to societal pressures or the wants of their significant other.
Researcher Lisa Hoplock, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the College of Nursing at the University of Manitoba, told Cosmopolitan that in her research, only 15% of couples want public proposals. There’s just too much that can go wrong with a proposal in public (this particular story is a good cautionary tale), and some people are just not ready to risk it.
Public proposals really put one partner into a corner. As Hoplock explains, “Some men proposed in public to try to save the relationship.” Others did so because they didn’t hear a “Yes” during a private proposal, too.
Hoplock wrote her thesis on proposals after watching hundreds of proposal videos and reading proposal stories online. What she found was that the more strangers were involved in a proposal, the more likely it was to go off the rails. She calculated that the chances of a failed proposal in public were 1.7 times higher than when popping the question in private.
In a 2016 survey of married men, only 13% admitted that their proposals went as planned. 34% said they even changed their plans when they felt too nervous. The most common issues guys faced were a location that’s too crowded, poor weather conditions, or having no plan about how to celebrate after the fact.
Image credits: syda_productions (not the actual photo)
Commenters urged the guy to share the video and hold the restaurant accountable: “Screwed this up extremely badly for all 4 of you!”
