Latest features Will you… stay for pudding? When proposals go wrong

Date Published:

06/05/2009

A romantic meal is one of the classics when it comes to proposing but, as Charlie Cottrell found out, sometimes the dream date becomes a restaurant nightmare

Calling all lovebirds. If you're planning on popping the question, where better to say those special words than in the luxurious surroundings of a romantic restaurant? Candlelight, fine wine, maybe some gentle piano music - it couldn't be more perfect. Unless you're one of these unlucky lovers.

Rice idea

The first step to a successful proposal is to pick a place your lover loves. The second is not to spoil it for them:

"I took my wife to La Bastide Saint-Antoine in France to propose," shares one colleague. "It was her favourite place because she absolutely adored the lobster risotto. So far, so good. But when we got there I was so nervous I couldn't think straight and I proposed at the beginning of the meal. She said 'yes', but was so excited she couldn't eat a thing. The two of us just sat there looking at our food."

Be shellfish

Every girl dreams of hearing those four magic words… Not every girl dreams of eating them in a great salty mass. The head chef at London's Irish Club found out that love doesn't just hurt - it stinks - when a man ordered 140 oysters, shucked them out of their shells and used them to spell 'Will you marry me?' across the table. Amazingly, she said 'yes'.

Three's a crowd

Traditionally, the proposal is an intimate moment between two people in love. Or occasionally two people in love and a persistent stranger, as this hopeless romantic discovered:

"I booked a table at the OXO Tower restaurant, to propose to my (now) wife. We had a lovely meal but I was constantly aware of the man on the table next to us, who was dining alone and obviously keen to join our conversation. Ordinarily I'd have been happy to chat, but this time I was more concerned with the ring burning a hole in my pocket.

I wanted to pop the question on the balcony overlooking London, but it was April and the chilly weather meant the doors were closed. I called the waiter over and asked whether we could be let out. He said we could, to which the chatty loner said, 'Oh brilliant! I'll come too!'. He followed us out, angling to get a word in edgeways and forcing me to strong-arm my girlfriend away from him. As I proposed to her, I could see him there, lingering at the other end of the terrace."

Keeping Mumm

Having a third party involved can get messy - even when it's your loved one's family, according to Mario Markosas, general manager of HUSH restaurant in Mayfair.

"A couple of years ago, I had a booking for three people who turned out to be an English man taking out his Japanese girlfriend and her mum. The moment he came in, he was nervous and he was asking lots of questions. I thought, 'He is going to propose tonight' so I told the staff to look after them, give them a VIP table and get them three glasses of Champagne on the house with desserts, as I thought this is when he would pop the question, expecting the answer to be 'yes'.

During the course of the evening I could see it was going all wrong. He was becoming increasingly agitated as his girlfriend was talking Japanese with her mum, leaving him out of the conversation. At some point I saw him frustratingly produce a ring to which I ordered the three glasses of Champagne. Our brasserie is a big space so it took a while to go and pick up the Champagne and move over to the table, and as I approached the table I saw they were all crying; he was holding his head in despair and I was stuck there with the tray and no words. I just about managed to say 'On the house'. Five minutes later his girlfriend left him, along with her mum. To make matters worse, when he came to pay, his card was declined."

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