(InStyle.com)
-- So you're finally ready to settle down and make that marriage
proposal? There's no better time to do it than engagement season,
which, lucky for you, is now! Get inspired by these uber-romantic
celebrity proposals.
Brandon Routh popped the question to Courtney Ford while on a picnic.
Tia Mowry and Cory Hardrict
Although the set of a slasher movie seems an unlikely place for romance
to bloom, that's just where it happened for actors Tia Mowry and Cory
Hardrict. Shortly after shooting began in 1999 on their film "Hollywood
Horror," the co-stars started spending time together.
Seven
years later, on Christmas Day 2006, Hardrict, 32, told Mowry, 30, that
he wanted to give her a promise ring. Then, as her entire family looked
on, the "Lincoln Heights" actor yelled, "Psych!" and got down on one
knee to present her with a 1.5-carat diamond engagement ring.
Antonio Pierce and Jocelyn Maldonado
Antonio Pierce, an NFL linebacker, met Jocelyn Maldonado during a
celebrity appearance at an ESPN Fantasy Football Draft. Maldonado, a
model at the event, instantly caught his eye. Pierce and Maldonado (who
now hosts Mets Weekly) were inseparable over the next six months.
In February 2007, Pierce treated Maldonado to a helicopter ride above
Manhattan, New York, before dining at Brooklyn's The River Café. Famous
for its chocolate Brooklyn Bridge cake, Pierce conspired with the
restaurant's manager to place the engagement ring atop the confection,
which was covered with pink rose petals.
Howie Dorough and Leigh Boniello
Backstreet Boy
Howard "Howie" Dorough got more than he bargained for after hiring
Leigh Boniello to be the band's webmaster in December 2000. Boniello
went on tour with the group and quickly grew close to Dorough.
Six years later, the couple attended a New Year's Eve party at the New
Jersey home of Boniello's father. "I figured, what better timing," says
Dorough, "because all of her family was going to be there, including
her 92-year-old grandmother."
Just before the stroke of
midnight, Dorough made a toast and presented Boniello with a
custom-designed three-stone diamond engagement ring.
Brandon Routh and Courtney Ford
Three years before actor Brandon Routh donned those famous blue tights,
he tended bar at Lucky Strike Lanes in Hollywood. During a party there
in 2003, actress Courtney Ford repeatedly poured out the drinks he made
her as a ruse to chat him up. "I kept asking him for another drink,
telling him the one before was too strong," she recalls.
In
2006, Routh purchased the 3-carat diamond ring that had caught Ford's
eye during an earlier visit to Neil Lane. But since the two were
traveling for the Superman Returns press tour, Routh asked Gilbert
Adler, one of the film's producers, to hold the ring until they arrived
in England. "Poor man!" says Routh. "He carried it around for two and a
half weeks." Finally, while picnicking in Glastonbury, Routh popped the
question.
Roselyn Sanchez and Eric Winter
Roselyn
Sanchez and Eric Winter became friends after meeting at a party in 2006
and Sanchez immediately pegged him as perfect husband material. She
found out for certain that he felt the same way just two days before
Christmas 2007, under a full moon at midnight, in a bay off the coast
of the Puerto Rican island Vieques.
The two were seated in a
double kayak, taking in the bioluminescent organisms shimmering in the
water all alone, except for a tour guide in a second kayak. The scene
should have been pure bliss, except that Sachez was concerned when
their guide speedily paddled away.
"The guy knew to take off
so Eric could propose, but imagine how I felt floating in this huge bay
in the middle of the night with nobody around," Sanchez explains. "I
started calling back, 'Senor, hello! Come back!' until I realized
something was going on."
After an "amazing speech," Winter
pulled out a 4.3-carat brilliant-cut diamond ring by Michael Barin,
Sanchez's favorite jeweler. But her joy was soon laced with anxiety
over the fact that such a costly bauble was surrounded by acres of sea.
"I said, 'Put it away, please. I don't want it to drop in the water!'"
Anna Chlumsky and Shaun So
Actress Anna Chlumsky, 27, best known for her role in "My Girl," was
awaiting her seven-year anniversary with college sweetheart and army
reservist Shaun So, 28, and hoping he might pop the question.
While they were having breakfast at a café in her neighborhood a week
before their anniversary, Chlumsky described a cocktail ring a friend
was selling. So, who had been carrying an engagement ring for two weeks
in anticipation of the perfect moment, pulled out the 1-carat,
cathedral-mounted, radiant-cut bauble and asked, "Does it look anything
like this?"
Guiliana DePandi & Bill Rancic
It
started out all business: Giuliana DePandi was interviewing Bill
Rancic, first-season winner on "The Apprentice" and co-host of the
Chicago, Illinois, TV show "In the Loop with iVillage." But when the
cameras stopped rolling in April 2006, a whirlwind -- and adventurous
-- romance began.
Eight months later, when Rancic, 36, popped
the question during a chopper flight over Chicago, complete with
champagne, Giordano's deep-dish pizza (DePandi's favorite) and Michael
Bublé tunes piped into the headset.
"Bill told me we were
going to look at Christmas lights," says DePandi. "It was dark in the
helicopter, so I didn't really get a look at the ring until the next
day, when I went into shock for the second time," she says of the
4-carat cushion-cut diamond in a micro pavé setting Rancic helped
design.
Jeri Ryan and Chistophe Eme
"He was hot!"
Shark star Jeri Ryan, 39, recalls of first glimpsing her future
husband, Christophe Emé, 38, at a food-related charity event four years
ago. "He looked good in his chef's hat, and he had this ornery little
spark in his eye that I really enjoy." After dating for two years, the
couple opened Ortolan, their celebrated French restaurant in Los
Angeles, California.
The proposal came soon after. "One night,
Christophe covered my eyes and took me into our bedroom," recalls Ryan.
There the die-hard romantic had placed candles, champagne and a canvas
painted with the messages "And you come with me forever" in French and
"Grow old along with me" in English. Emé then presented Ryan with a
made-to-order cushion-cut solitaire set in pavé diamonds.
Jason Priestley and Naomi Lowde
Fate has looked after Jason Priestley. On Valentine's Day 2000 the
actor met Naomi Lowde, a makeup artist from Hertfordshire, England,
while walking back from a play rehearsal in London. "I was smitten,"
says Priestley, now 36.
The Beverly Hills, 90210 alum and
Lowde, 27, immediately began dating, and in 2002 they moved back to
California together. That's when fate took another turn: On August 11,
2002, Priestley was driving his race car on a Kentucky track when he
hit a wall at 180 mph. Though he sustained three skull fractures, a
broken back and a bleeding artery in his neck, he pulled through.
"It was a tough time, but it was also magical because we kept each
other's spirits high," says Lowde. "We pushed two beds together in the
hospital and put Swifty, our French bulldog, in the middle. We were
together 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for three months."
In May 2004 Priestley arranged another trip to London, England -- to
the very street corner where he and Naomi first met, where he presented
her with an emerald-cut, three-diamond ring by Steven Pomerantz.
Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O'Connell
What happens in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas -- and for Rebecca
Romijn and Jerry O'Connell, that's not a bad thing. Nearly four years
ago the two ran into each other poolside at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las
Vegas, Nevada. "I was working on a documentary, and Jerry offered to
help," recalls Romijn, 35. "He spent a week operating the microphone,
but later he told me he would have done anything. I don't think he
really cared about the project, if you know what I mean."
For
their first date the couple went to see the Blue Man Group with
friends, and O'Connell had Romijn in stitches. "It was this whole Jerry
show in my ear. That's how it is with Jerry. You get sucked into it!"
Evidently: A year and a half later, on September 18, 2005, O'Connell,
33, proposed to Romijn in New York with a diamond ring from Simon G.
"I got down on one knee, asked her to marry me and said, 'You better
say yes' a couple of times -- there was a little bit of a pause on her
part," says O'Connell.
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