Si­mone Sant-Ghu­ran

Founder & Ed­i­tor-in-Chief at Trinidad Wed­dings

Whether it’s a grand ges­ture in a far­away des­ti­na­tion or a qui­et mo­ment shared at home, what’s cer­tain is that mod­ern cou­ples are seek­ing out in­no­v­a­tive ways to ex­press their love and de­vo­tion.

Why have pro­pos­als changed so much from yes­ter­year?

The an­swer could be found in pop cul­ture and the im­pact of so­cial me­dia. This de­sire to cap­ture the mo­ment dig­i­tal­ly, to re­post it on so­cial me­dia plat­forms and to share with friends and fol­low­ers is mak­ing some pro­pos­als shift from in­ti­mate and pri­vate ex­pe­ri­ences to all-out ex­trav­a­gan­zas!

This de­mand has giv­en rise to wed­ding pro­fes­sion­als who now spe­cialise in pro­pos­al plan­ning, par­tic­u­lar­ly for those who want to ex­e­cute an elab­o­rate plan, com­plete with decor!

Be­fore em­bark­ing on any pro­pos­al plan, it’s crit­i­cal to find out whether your part­ner prefers a pub­lic or a pri­vate pro­pos­al? An in­for­mal In­sta­gram poll (Feb­ru­ary 15, 2024) in which Trinidad­Wed­dings’ fol­low­ers par­tic­i­pat­ed, re­vealed that 95 per cent of re­spon­dents pre­fer a pri­vate pro­pos­al, while five per cent would rather a pub­lic one

Some of the more pop­u­lar pub­lic pro­pos­als we all might have seen are: dur­ing Car­ni­val time while play­ing mas, in a restau­rant, at a con­cert, at a tourist at­trac­tion or even at some­one else’s wed­ding!

Grand ges­tures cer­tain­ly have their ap­peal to some, but oth­ers grav­i­tate to qui­eter mo­ments, such as a can­dlelit din­ner at home, recre­at­ing a mean­ing­ful mo­ment from their re­la­tion­ship, craft­ing a heart­felt let­ter ex­press­ing their love, or­gan­is­ing a pic­nic pro­pos­al, a “down the is­lands” pro­pos­al or on a beach trip to To­ba­go.

Here are some trends we are see­ing with mod­ern pro­pos­als:

Mu­si­cians

Whether it’s the gen­tle strum­ming of an acoustic gui­tar or steel­pan, a melod­ic vi­o­lin or a soul­ful sax­o­phone, live mu­si­cians have a re­mark­able abil­i­ty to set the mood and cre­ate a ro­man­tic am­biance. Just as pho­tog­ra­phers and video­g­ra­phers cap­ture the vi­su­al as­pects of a pro­pos­al, live mu­si­cians cap­ture the emo­tion­al essence of the mo­ment, through mu­sic. One of the great­est ben­e­fits of in­cor­po­rat­ing live mu­si­cians in­to a wed­ding pro­pos­al is the op­por­tu­ni­ty for per­son­al­i­sa­tion. Cou­ples can choose songs that hold spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance in their re­la­tion­ship or a favourite song that cap­tures their per­son­al­i­ties.

In­cor­po­rat­ing back­drops

Just like wed­dings, some mod­ern pro­pos­als are decked out in full re­galia, with com­mon re­quests for red car­pets, rose petals, arch­es, can­dles, fire­works, cus­tom al­pha­bet let­ters or “Mar­ry Me” sig­nage and oth­er cus­tom decor el­e­ments.

Videog­ra­phy and pho­tog­ra­phy

Some cou­ples are hir­ing pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­phers and video­g­ra­phers or en­list­ing the help of hid­den cam­eras to chron­i­cle all the emo­tion­al re­ac­tions and can­did ex­pres­sions dur­ing the pro­pos­al. Luck­i­ly, this footage and im­ages can even be used lat­er on, dur­ing their wed­ding re­cep­tion, as added en­ter­tain­ment for their guests.

Des­ti­na­tion pro­pos­als

The al­lure of des­ti­na­tion pro­pos­als con­tin­ues to grow, with cou­ples seek­ing out pic­turesque lo­ca­tions to pop the ques­tion–ei­ther lo­cal­ly or on va­ca­tion. The op­tions are end­less, from stun­ning moun­tain­top vis­tas, a scenic park, hot air bal­loons, on a yacht, on an ex­ot­ic beach or atop an icon­ic land­mark. Des­ti­na­tion pro­pos­als of­fer the op­por­tu­ni­ty for cou­ples to cre­ate un­for­get­table mem­o­ries in breath­tak­ing set­tings, to add an ex­tra touch of mag­ic to the mo­ment.

In­volv­ing fam­i­ly and friends

Some cou­ples pre­fer to in­cor­po­rate close friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers to add an ex­tra dose of joy and sup­port to the oc­ca­sion. Whether it’s ar­rang­ing a sur­prise gath­er­ing with loved ones im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the pro­pos­al or en­list­ing their help with “keep­ing se­crets”, in or­der to plan a mem­o­rable pro­pos­al.

To sum up, wed­ding pro­pos­als nowa­days are as di­verse as the cou­ples who par­take in them but what’s com­mon re­gard­less of pro­pos­al type (whether pub­lic or pri­vate), is cre­at­ing a mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ence that cel­e­brates love, con­nec­tion and com­mit­ment.

To keep in the loop on more wed­ding trends and for wed­ding plan­ning ad­vice, be sure to join the Trinidad­Wed­dings’ mail­ing list at this link: www.trinidad­wed­dings.com/mail­ing-list/