I previously blogged about how I would eschew diamonds in my marriage proposal to my partner. At the time of that post, I was still trying to figure out exactly how I would go about proposing. Over the holidays I finally did propose, so here’s how it went.

Heterosexual couples have some well-established guidelines that describe all sorts of things surrounding engagements. The man is supposed to propose to the woman. The engagement ring is supposed to have a diamond and cost a certain amount. Immediately after the proposal you’re supposed to call your family. The bride’s parents are supposed to throw an engagement party. In deciding how to propose to my partner during the recent holiday season, none of those guidelines were much help, because they just don’t make sense when a man is proposing to another man.

First and foremost on my mind was the ring. Men generally don’t wear engagement rings, but I knew I wanted to propose with some sort of ring so I could do the traditional one-knee proposal. However, I couldn’t imagine either one of us wearing more than one ring on the same finger. I wanted the ring to be simple and masculine, and after looking around, I found that most wedding bands fit the bill. Wedding bands tend to be simple and elegant, whereas most of the engagement rings I saw were rather garish. I decided I would buy wedding bands for both of us, and then use his wedding band in my proposal. This way I could propose with a nice ring while saving the entire cost of a typical engagement ring.

Next I had to decide on the particular wedding bands I wanted. I immediately ruled out gold for aesthetic reasons. I loved the platinum rings I saw, but they were awfully pricey with the dollar in a downward spiral. Titanium seemed to be the ultimate frugal choice with many rings going for less than $100, but some reviews I read indicated that it scratched easily and could be harder to resize. A commenter on my post about diamonds indicated they went with stainless steel, but I knew I wanted to spend a bit on our rings – just not so much that I’d be wearing the down payment for my next car on my finger. Ultimately, I went with white gold. The rhodium plating makes the gold look similar to platinum but for much less money. White gold does have some maintenance needs – the rhodium has to be refreshed from time to time when it wears through – but for me it struck the perfect balance between cost and quality.

After the ring, the second thing on my mind was where to propose. I considered doing it in one of our favorite bars around friends, but that didn’t seem intimate enough. I ended up ruling out a fancy restaurant for the same reason. There are some pretty outdoor places we like to go hiking, but that didn’t seem romantic enough and the weather could be a challenge at this time of year. We both love to take pictures of skyscrapers, so I started looking around on Flickr for pictures of the Dallas skyline. I found some amazing shots of downtown Dallas that were taken from an outdoor pool on the 16th floor of the W Victory Dallas hotel. Finding nothing else comparable to what I saw there, I booked a room, telling my partner that we were just going there to get some nice pictures of downtown.

We arrived at the hotel in the afternoon, and got some great pictures of downtown from the 16th floor pool. I decided I would wait until later that night when the skyline was all lit up, and then take him back up to the pool to propose. After a nice dinner in the trendy hotel restaurant, we went back up to the pool, only to find they closed it at night! The doors were locked, and the friendly voice that came on when we pushed the button next to the door would not let us out due to ‘security reasons’. I had to change my plan fast, and I suggested we take a walk.

We walked across the plaza outside the hotel and noticed a 5-story parking garage next to an arena nearby. We walked up to the top and were greeted with an incredible view of the Dallas skyline at night. So I proposed in a parking lot. It was actually a lot more romantic than it sounds!

In any case, between the rings, the hotel, and dinner, I ended up spending only about $1500 to propose, and now we already have our wedding bands. After getting two really nice rings and a hotel room out of that money, it’s hard to imagine spending two months’ salary for a single ring. $1500 was an amount that I could work into our holiday expenses without too much of an impact on our finances. Two months salary would be another matter entirely – we would have to cancel planned vacations or delay our savings for a new house. It makes me think of one of those Mastercard commercials:

Rings – $1100
Hotel – $280
Dinner – $120
Being able to propose without derailing your other financial goals – Priceless

One could argue that engagement should involve a big financial sacrifice in order to demonstrate your commitment, but that only makes sense when you take it out of context of your other financial goals. What about your commitment to having a nice home together, or taking a special trip together? Aren’t those just as important? Maybe gay men have it easy since a man does not traditionally wear an expensive engagement ring anyway. What do you think?