Real Romantic Displays of Affection

Popular culture is replete with romantic gestures which convince the girl to turn back from the airport or prevent her from marrying another guy at the last minute. And yet many of these are hard to replicate in real life, not to mention potentially dangerous or unlawful even. However as the following instances show, it is indeed possible to pamper your beloved with deeply romantic gestures and keep your love life ever green.

Flowers every week

Jack Mills, 89, from Yaxley, Cambridgeshire, has managed to keep his wife Millie happy by handing her more than 3,000 bouquets of flowers in the seven decades they have been together1. Britain’s most romantic man has revealed the secret of his success - buying his wife flowers every week for over seventy years. The World War II veteran first laid eyes on 88-year-old Millie at the age of eighteen and apparently flipped a penny with his friend to decide which of the pair would ask her out on a date. This was a decision that he has apparently never regretted, after seventy years of marriage, three daughters, six grand-children and now great-grandparents to twelve.

Valentine’s Day surprise

Kelly, 26, PR Account Executive has a lovely story to share about her husband’s romantic gesture2. One Valentine’s Day, her husband made dinner plans but wouldn't tell her where. He just said the restaurant was a very "out of the way place." After driving for his hours he said we were lost, but this was only his way of covering up a fabulous surprise. When the couple finally pulled up to a romantic bed and breakfast, Kelly found out that he had actually booked the whole weekend for a romantic getaway. But this still wasn't the best part. To her, the truly romantic surprise was that he'd packed her whole suitcase. Seeing all the time and effort he had put into the weekend made her heart melt and truly thankful for such a romantic life-partner.

With some help from cows

When planning romantic gestures, it’s good to play to your strengths, and no one can say that Dick Kleis is guilty of breaking that rule. As a special surprise for his wife Carole’s birthday, the Iowa farmer3 spent about three hours spelling out “HAP B DAY LUV U” in 120,000 pounds of cow manure. “I was going to put a heart out there after the happy birthday, but I ran out of manure,” he said. Then he flew his lady love up in a plane to view his masterpiece. Fortunately for Dick, she enjoyed the gesture, though the smell may have been hardly conducive to romance.

Up in the sky

Yet another lover who took it up to the skies but without involving anything so smelly is Corey Cook4 of Toledo. When he told his girlfriend Michelle that told her that he was planning something big for a marriage proposal, she thought it might involve billboards or perhaps a water tower. Instead found a farmer and paid him to cut out a seven acre marriage proposal in his field. Cook, a self-employed hotel market researcher, found Leaders Family Farms on the Internet and contracted to have his proposal cut in their cornfield. In order to materialize Cook's proposal, the Leaders drew a heart and his message on grid paper and used that as a guide in June to remove - by hand - corn plants to make the design he wanted in the field. The width of each letter in the proposal was about five feet of bare ground. To keep that ground free of weeds, the Leaders hoed - again by hand - in July the outline of the heart and words. Even though the proposal cost Cook several hundred dollars, the message not only resulted in a happy fiancé but also garnered a lot of attention from has drawn much attention from the air. According to Leanders, several times a day, planes circle the heart for a better look.

Performance pays

Relationship experts warn that what looks good on movies does not always translate well onto real life. However Pete Simson didn’t seem to think so when he hired his city’s local cinema to play a self-made five minute film for his girlfriend5, who thought he was taking her to a movie for her birthday. Instead she was treated to five minutes of Simson miming the ballad “If You’re Not the One” by Daniel Bedingfield, writhing on a bed, and dancing “in a variety of colorful pants.” Simson proposed to his girlfriend at the movie’s close with participation by the cinema’s employees. Lucky for him that his girlfriend wasn’t put off by “colorful pants”, dancing and accepted.

Love at Disneyland

One of the most romantic gestures has to be a wedding proposal at Disneyland. This was what Jamin Love thought as the roped in close friends to propose to his sweetheart of five years Valerie at Downtown Disney September 25th, 2011. The proposal was made by creating a flash mob to the song ‘Marry You’ by Bruno Mars.  By the time, the groom-to-be joined in, the proposal was well on its way to success and it was only a matter of time before Valerie said yes. The video, simply titled “Jamin’s Downtown Disney Flashmob Proposal” has since garnered over 4 million hits on YouTube and is easily one of the most romantic and over-the-top proposals ever seen.

The Siren of love

In Illinois, Chad Defrates, a soldier deployed in Iraq, decided to surprise his girlfriend by coming home early than planned and proposing marriage. For the purpose he also enlisted the help of the local sheriff to spring a traffic stop that would ask for more than her license and registration. On the fixed day, Chad sat alongside Christian County Sheriff Bob Kinderman. And began waiting for Jennifer Rogers to get off work. However Chad admitted being nervous about his surprise trip home and his even bigger surprise wedding proposal that was just minutes away. In fact he claimed to be much more nervous about this than he had felt while being shot at and mortared.

According to plan, as Jennifer was questioned by the sheriff, Chad walked up armed with only a CD player  playing the couple's favorite song, "Bless the Broken Road." He then proposed to his girlfriend saying, "You know I'd take as many miles as I have to if I had to do it to get to you. Will you do me the honor of being my wife?" And her response was, "Yes. I love you so much."

Long and romantic

Finally, what do you say of a guy who has spent a whopping thirteen months planning and executing a wooing campaign. Stephen Williams sure knew how to make his girl feel special and he savored the whole experience – all thirteen months of it5. The38-year-old football coach, of Ellistown, Leicestershire spent seven months perfecting his plans before putting them in action for the benefit of his girlfriend Jennifer Tomlinson, 31. A love letter she found under her pillow began six months of wooing which also mentioned that she would be getting more such notes as clues to what was in store. The full-time mum, who has four children said she once received a message in a bottle strapped to a helium balloon and had one even delivered by her boyfriend dressed as a leprechaun. More heart-melting notes and fancy-dress performances followed before she was whisked off on surprise trips to London and Venice, where he finally went down on one knee. Naturally she said yes  – who wouldn’t to such a persevering lover!

References:

1. Mail Online - Is this Britain's most romantic man? War veteran, 89, has bought his wife flowers every week for 70 years
    
2. iVillage - Real Romance: What 10 Men Did for Love
    
3. Her Campus - Emerson College - Top 10 Craziest Romantic Gestures
    
4. The Blade - Truly corny idea plants seeds of love
    
5. The Sun - Anything but a pants proposal
    
6. Wistv.com - Illinois soldier proposes to girlfriend during a traffic stop
    
7. Mirror News - Is this Britain's most romantic man? Boyfriend's 13 MONTHS of surprises in build-up to proposal