The Atlantic

A Simple Fix for a Better Marriage Proposal

One partner—any partner—proposes. Later, the other one does too.
Source: Roy Hsu / Getty

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Tatiana Caicedo’s job is to help people plan their marriage proposals. Secrecy is important in her line of work—the business she co-owns is called Proposal 007—but sometimes her clients’ partners figure out what’s going on.

And when that happens, there might be a counter-proposal. For instance, after one woman proposed in a park with musical accompaniment, her partner—who was touched but not exactly surprised—led the woman to another part of the park, where she’d arranged roses in the shape of a heart, and proposed right back. Caicedo told me that the counter-proposal is especially common with clients who are in same-sex relationships; another operation that she helped plan in a restaurant culminated, to her surprise, in two men presenting rings to each other, taking

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