Jack Knox, aka Dr. Romance, is a Times Columnist and he wrote a hilarious article on The Heart Bandits. It is titled “A Lady Bandit Who is All Heart” and it is too funny not to share! Contact us today if you want to start working on your customized proposal by The Heart Bandits.
The Heart Bandit thinks Dr. Romance needs help.
She’s on the phone from Los Angeles, where she read last week’s Valentine’s Day advice column online.
Her real name is Michele Williamson. A professional marriage proposal planner and romance consultant, she has somehow got it into her head that I might not be the clear front-runner in the sensitivity sweepstakes.
Dunno where she got that from, though she mentions something about how my idea of romance (muting the game while she talks) doesn’t exactly put a fellow in Mr. Darcy territory.
You know that Will Smith movie Hitch? That’s what Williamson does, planning customized marriage proposals and romantic dates. She also offers a romance concierge service where clients -some time-impoverished, others just plain clueless -contract her to send flowers, book restaurants, email reminders of upcoming anniversaries and birthdays, that sort of thing. It’s all at theheartbandits.com. (Of course, Dr. Romance would not need this service; that would be like Pavarotti hiring Justin Bieber.)
Williamson got the idea for the Heart Bandits after her partner in the company -and life -proposed to her aboard a sunset dinner cruise. Romantic, yes, but he popped the question only 10 minutes before docking, leaving little time for celebration. And he didn’t plan a place to go once they were ashore. That got Williamson, whose background was in event planning, thinking about how it could have been done a wee bit better.
(I refrained from mentioning Dr. Romance’s own proposal strategy: wait until the mercury plunges to minus 30, then refuse to start the car until she says yes. I’m not making this up. Mrs. Dr. Romance still maintains that her acceptance should have come with an asterisk, like a truncheon-assisted confession or George W. Bush’s first election as president.)
A minor note of indignation creeps into Williamson’s voice as she speaks of men who, instead of really thinking about whom they’re asking to marry them, troll the Internet for generic advice on how to propose, inevitably coming up with something “cheesy” like dropping a ring in a champagne glass or -egads! -booking the local Jumbotron.
“I don’t suggest that men propose at sporting events,” she says. A guy who proposes at The Game might be thinking more of his likes than hers.
“Women want to feel special,” Williamson says. “The day he proposes is the day she’s been dreaming of her whole life.” The dream does not include Romeo holding a ring in one hand and a plastic beer glass in the other, a mustard stain where his heart is supposed to be.
Of course, it’s different if the proposee is a sports junkie. Williamson is currently arranging a “Gleestyle proposal,” in which 20 actors will spring from the seats at a major league baseball game and perform a choreographed song-anddance for a diehard fan of the home team.
She’s also working with a client who wants to propose on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. (“Ellen’s not returning my calls.”)
But beware: There are dangers to high-profile, public displays, a trend some trace to sportscaster Ahmad Rashad’s proposal to actress Phylicia AyersAllen during a live NFL broadcast in 1985. (She said yes. Then they got divorced.) Fans at a Houston Astros game once got to see a woman pour a bag of popcorn on a guy and flee in horror after he went down on one knee.
The most cringeworthy video on YouTube shows a marriage proposal on the big screen at Yankee Stadium, the problem being that it was a prank set up by the guy’s friends. (She said yes, he said no, it went downhill from there.) A Baltimore politician recently caught hell for wasting public resources after employing a boat and police helicopter in a fake marine raid turned marriage proposal.
Williamson is keener on the more private, personal approach, like the soldier in Afghanistan whom she helped propose long distance to his girl in an elegant Houston hotel room decorated with roses, candles and a violinist playing in the background.
“I’m a super hopeless romantic,” Williamson says. “I still cry when people propose.”
So does Mrs. Dr. Romance. Great, heaving sobs of joy.
Contact The Heart Bandits- Engagement Planners if you want to start your tailored Canada proposal ideas and planning. We also work everywhere else in the world! See proposals here!
Michele