To be completely honest, a skydive doesn’t scream “romantic Valentine’s Day activity”. There’s a world of difference between dressing up and enjoying a champagne-laden dinner with your partner and donning a safety jumpsuit and throwing yourself out of a plane ten thousand feet above the ground while strapped to a man who’s almost certainly not your partner.
However, some people not only see skydiving as romantic, but even use it as a chance to propose to their partner! This naturally makes for a memorable proposal, but it is also filled with logistical issues that could make the whole thing go horribly wrong in a matter of milliseconds. If you’re considering proposing during a skydive, you could do worse than read through these tips to make sure everything goes as smoothly as it can…
How are you going to do it?
A skydive proposal can be done in a couple of different ways, and the way you conduct yours will depend on your skydive operator and how much they can accommodate what you want to do. If you do a tandem skydive with GoSkydive, for instance, your partner might land before you and then see your canopy open to reveal the words “Will you marry me?”. If you land first, you can be waiting with the ring and possibly a bunch of flowers if you don’t think a really expensive piece of jewellery will be impressive enough for her.
Alternatively, you might propose during the skydive itself, as long as you can get close enough to each other to do it – easier said than done when you’re falling at speeds of over 100mph!
Hold onto the ring!
If you’re getting the ring out during the skydive, don’t let it go, whatever you do! Countless skydiving proposals have been ruined when someone lets the ring go in mid-air and it’s lost forever. See also: proposals on the ocean, proposals in helicopters, fights to the death inside Mount Doom.
Communication?
It would be nice to be able to tell your partner what’s going on, rather than just shoving a ring in her face while she’s trying not to scream. However, it’s not the easiest place to talk (and you’ll probably lack the time to adequately express your feelings for her), so it might be a good idea to write “Will you marry me” or a variant of the same on your palms and show them to her so she knows that you haven’t just picked an inopportune moment to start examining jewellery.
Receiving an answer
While you might be able to let her know that you’re proposing, her reply might be more difficult to discern – the good news is that there are only two answers she can give, though! If you can’t hear what she says, just try and put the ring on her finger. If she lets you, it’s yes – if she jerks her hand away and the ring tumbles to the ground, it’s probably a pretty solid no. It’d be pretty spectacular to misjudge something like this, though, so chances are that she’ll say (or scream) yes.
Cover photo: skydivers, by Bob MacInnes.
