The Most Laid-Back Celebrity Marriage Proposals

Celebrities have earned a reputation for going the whole nine yards when it comes to proposing to their partners. Many well-known faces have gone from girlfriend to fiancée on trips abroad, for instance. Sophia Bush said yes to the love of her life, Grant Hughes on a European getaway, Hailey Bieber got a surprise of a lifetime in the Bahamas, and an African safari made the perfect setting for Keleigh Sperry's special day.

Of all celebrity proposals, few are yet to come close to the grand way Kanye West asked for his now ex-wife Kim Kardashian's hand in marriage back in 2013. West booked an entire baseball stadium for Kardashian, and as they were serenaded by an orchestra, he got on one knee. Speaking of the moment on "Power 106," West said, "I just thought it would be dope ... It's very much like a Donda exercise. I sit with my team of creatives and we say, 'What's the best version of this?'" Had West had his way, Lana Del Rey would have performed that night.

Unlike him, however, a couple of celebrities have over the years chosen to skip the technicalities that make a mega proposal in society's eyes. Quiet dinners, downtime at home, phone calls, you name it! These proposals were so subtle, but it's the thought that counts.

As far as simplicity goes, Will Smith has one amusing story to tell. Given his extraordinarily overt life with Jada Pinkett Smith, Will's marriage proposition was far from a spectacle. "We were just lying there, going to sleep. I looked over at her, and I said, 'Hey, we might be real good married. Wassup? You wanna marry me?'" he shared in a 2005 conversation with People. It was a thought that came out of the blue, and there was no ring in sight. "It's really weird when you live the kind of lifestyle that we live: Simplicity becomes the jewel," Will remarked.

Although Jada accepted to be his wife, marriage wasn't really in the list of things she was looking forward to. She hadn't warmed up to the thought of a ceremony, either. With a little coercion from her mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, she gave in. It goes without saying that Jada and Will's wedding day turned out to be disastrous, a fact that was heightened by the former's pregnancy.

"My first trimester was horrible," Jada disclosed on an episode of "Red Table Talk" dubbed "Becoming Mr. & Mrs. Smith." "And I was so upset that I had to have a wedding. I was so pissed, I went crying down the freaking aisle."

Once Hollywood's most eligible bachelor, it was love at first sight when George Clooney met his would-be wife, Amal Alamuddin Clooney. Despite the sparks that flew on their initial meeting, George was unsure of where he stood with the Lebanese attorney. To steer things forward, he hatched a scheme to woo Amal in the most adorable way; a smitten George drafted letters, some of which were notes from his dog.

When it came to proposing, the "Far From Heaven ” star had an equally affectionate plan that somewhat backfired. George had laid it all on the table, quite literally. He'd put a ring box in a hiding place, made dinner, and curated a playlist that included the song "Why Shouldn't I" by his aunt, Rosemary Clooney. Amal, who'd just returned from a London trip, was oblivious of the special setting before her. And right when George's song of choice was almost on, she blew his plan to smithereens. "She gets up to go wash the dishes, which she's never done," George revealed on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."

Amal didn't get it either when George put taper candles out and lied about a lighter being in the ring box. "She reached around, she pulls out the box, and I've got just the ring sitting in there ... she looks at it and she's like, 'It's a ring.' Like somebody had left it there," George amusedly detailed, adding that he got a yes in the long run, but it took Amal 25 minutes to get there.

Amy Schumer's chef husband Chris Fischer couldn't wait for the "Snatched" star to wake up before proposing, as she narrated on "The Howard Stern Show." "I got you this," Fischer told his soon-to-be wife, who was still wearing ear plugs and a sleeping mask. Schumer declined Fischer's request to go down on one knee, but ultimately gave him a resounding yes.

The proposal wasn't the only abrupt happening in Fischer and Schumer's lives. Their nuptials were equally spontaneous, with a three to four-day planning period. People close to the pair were invited through a text that simply read, "I'm getting married on Tuesday. I hope you can come." Schumer's marital vows included a NSFW twist, a theme that was echoed by her friend, actor Jennifer Lawrence who was in attendance.

Asked whether she'd advocate for marriage, Schumer said, "Absolutely. Because, you're in. You're done. He's mine, I'm his. We've partnered up. We've committed to be partners for life, and we meant it."

Even though they were years away from gaining worldwide fame at the time of former POTUS Barack Obama's proposal, the Obamas had a simple dinner in which Barack played to Michelle's combative nature. While Michelle was under the impression that they were dining to mark Barack's completion of the bar exam, he lured her into his real trap with a conflicting option about marriage. "He picks a fight," Michelle divulged on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert." "And so, I deliver because I, too, am a lawyer, and I have my points to be made."

Michelle was passionately arguing until dessert arrived, and as she described, "The waiter put a platter in front of me with a little box with a ring on it. In the middle of the argument I was like, "Whoa!"... He opened up the box and he said, 'Now that oughta shut you up.'"

The proposal was allegedly Barack's third, overall. He presumably fired the question to historian Sheila Miyoshi Jager before Michelle came along. According to author David Garrow's account on "Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama," Barack proposed twice to the East Asian Studies professor. Jager declined his first proposal due to age, and by the time he was ready to settle again, it was an effort to salvage a relationship that was on its knees.

The first time Jennifer Lopez got engaged to Ben Affleck, she was certain that he was the one. The intensity of their romance, she said in a 2002 conversation with ABC News, was too hot to handle. "What I knew that was different this time is that I was just more scared," Lopez expressed candidly in the dialogue with celebrated broadcaster Diane Sawyer. "It was too powerful ... so hot, you now, that I was just like, [it] made me afraid."

Although the fierceness of their love couldn't lead to the altar then, Lopez and Affleck had a chance to do it all over again in April 2022. On Lopez's "On the J-Lo" newsletter, the "I'm Into You" singer gushed over Affleck's private proposal. "Saturday night, while at my favorite place on earth (in the bubble bath), my beautiful love got on one knee and proposed," she wrote. Of course, it wasn't her first rodeo down the engagement lane. Nevertheless, Lopez couldn't contain her emotions, adding that it was surreal to have her dream ending after two decades. 

The lovebirds found their way down the aisle the same year in a hush-hush Las Vegas wedding that made it to Lopez's end-of-year reel. Lopez's album, "This Is Me...Now," an anticipated release inspired by her rekindled relationship with Affleck, is a sequel to her 2002 breakup album "This Is Me..Then." 

Comedian Hasan Minhaj had every intention of keeping up with the Joneses when he asked doctor Beena Patel to marry him. Armed with a credit card and a sprinkle of audacity, Minhaj turned to Groupon for an ideal inexpensive balling set-up. "So I go to groupon.com, backslash adventures, I scroll down, I click on 'sunrise hot-air balloon ride,' purchase," Minhaj recounted on "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

 It didn't help that he made a Wednesday booking. Minhaj woke Patel up at dawn. She hadn't changed out of her pajamas when he led her to an open field. He dismissed any help from a Groupon attendant and regretted it immediately after a different couple overshadowed his dream proposal.

As soon as they were back on land again, Minhaj had to quickly think on his feet. His family would be calling in for an update, but he was yet to propose. His plan? Aimlessly drive to the nearest eatery. "The minutes are counting down ... I take the first exit, I don't know what's open," Minhaj told Kimmel. "9:59 AM as my phone is ringing, the only thing open is an Applebee's. And at ten o'clock in the morning, inside of an Applebee's, I just get down on one knee and I'm like, 'Beena, will you marry me?'"

While Lauren Bushnell was the recipient of the last rose on the 20th season of "The Bachelor," her engagement to Ben Higgins wasn't long-lasting. Higgins decided not to proceed with the wedding on the ex-couple's follow-up show "Ben & Lauren: Happily Ever After?" Unknown to Bushnell at the time, her would-be husband, country singer Chris Lane, with whom she crossed paths at an iHeartRadio show in Austin, Texas, was right around the corner. At the 2018 CMA Awards, the "Hold You Tonight" singer and Bushnell became red carpet official.

Lane's 2019 proposal to Bushnell was nothing close to a nationwide-broadcast rose ceremony. "I knew she wouldn't want some elaborate crazy proposal," he told People of the easygoing occasion. "I asked her parents for different places in Portland I could potentially take her to, but after a lot of thought I decided doing it at the family cookout would be the most laid-back setting and that she'd appreciate the simplicity of me proposing to her in her parents' backyard."

Featuring a personalized song dubbed "Big, Big Plans," a montage of Bushnell and Lane's adventurous lives, including the cherry on top — an unpretentious proposal in the presence of family — made it to his YouTube channel.

Prior to getting hitched to his "Bugsy" co-star Annette Bening, Warren Beatty was already on the fast track to lifelong bachelorhood. Beatty was a bit skeptical about matrimony. "Maybe society has to accept that we don't have to feel terribly guilty for more than one marriage, "he remarked on "The Dick Cavett Show." "Maybe life can be made up of [a] series of marriages."

In spite of his opinion, and a reputation around the entertainment scene for being a casanova, Beatty's heart warmed up when he met Bening. During an appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," Bening revealed that Beatty's proposal was a still affair in the comfort of their home. "He gave me this ring when we were just on a place in our house, just a quiet moment by ourselves," she shared.

What led the notorious bachelor to a change of mind, you may ask? As it turned out, Beatty was simply dodging separation. "I wasn't trying to avoid marriage, I was trying to avoid divorce," he said in an interview with "The Today Show." True to his word, the duo has kept the flame up for three decades and counting.

Just like Hasan Minhaj's failed attempt at getting it right with Beena Patel in his initial proposal idea, "God's Favorite Idiot" star Ben Falcone had a series of setbacks before he could pop the question to Melissa McCarthy. Falcone picked up McCarthy's preferred bagels to spice the occasion up, and was set to make the memory of a lifetime at a place that made her heart sing — their revamped back porch. No sooner had he gathered up courage, than a plumber's knock got in the way. According to Falcone's narration on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," there couldn't have been a worse time to put a new toilet in place.

"There's a guy messing around with the toilet. Like, I couldn't be the toilet proposal [guy],"he reflected. "Now we're just eating bagels and it's just weird." Falcone thought of proposing at a dog park, but the idea didn't sound appealing either. In the end, his moment came after the plumber's exit.

"Melissa is watching an autopsy show, and playing, like a hand-held Tetris game ... I'm so jacked up and I'm freaked out, and I just rush at her and go, "Melissa, will you marry me!" Actually, she technically never said yes ... she gave me a hug and it seemed like everything was cool and we did get married."

As highly publicized as the relationship between Meghan Markle and Prince Harry has been, Harry's proposal to the Duchess of Sussex was a pleasant homely experience."A standard, typical night for us," they jointly shared in a chat with CBC News, adding that it happened after they had dated for a year and a half.

Markle was stunned, such that she hardly let the Duke of Sussex wrap up before giving him a nod. "Then there was hugs and I had the ring in my finger. I was like, "Can I give you the ring?" She was [like] "Oh yes! The ring!" It was a really nice moment, just the two of us," Harry recalled.

The couple was no stranger to having a tranquil aura, free from the watchful eyes of the public. When the world wasn't aware about the brewing love between the heartthrobs, serene times, such as a five-day camping trip in Botswana, helped them bond.

Dave McCary and Emma Stone may have gained notoriety for leading a life away from the public, but over the years, details of their low-key lives have done rounds on the grapevine. McCary and the "La La Land" actor first set tongues wagging when they were seen together at the "Brigsby Bear" premier in 2017. Stone and McCary's first formal appearance was at the Golden State Warriors versus Los Angeles Clippers NBA game in January 2019, and a SAG Awards debut followed suit.

In April 2019, rumor had it that Stone was off the market when she displayed a sparkly band while grabbing a meal at lunchtime. Page Six would later claim that McCary had indeed popped the question at their initial meeting place, "Saturday Night Live" workroom. McCary was the director behind Stone's 2016 "Wells for Boys" act on the show. 

"Dave proposed at the offices where they first met at [NBC's Manhattan HQ] 30 Rock. No one was there and by all accounts, it was very romantic," a little birdie told the publication. At long last, Stone confirmed the good news with a snap of themselves in a since-deleted Instagram post.

The late "Full House" star Bob Saget conveniently interrupted shared screen time to propose to his widow Kelly Rizzo in 2017. "We were up in Big Sur," Saget detailed on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon." "I had the ring in the safe and we were watching 'Stranger Things' on the iPad and I paused it ... I got on one knee and I didn't phrase it right. I said, 'I would like to be with you for whatever days I have left.'"

Through a post on Instagram, Saget delightedly made the announcement to his followers. Before that, he'd let a number of people in his inner circle in the know, including John Stamos and singer John Mayer. The lovers had a Californian beach wedding in October 2018, during which a special performance and guitar gift by Mayer encouraged Rizzo to attend music classes.

In the face of Saget's unexpected passing, Rizzo continues to honor her late husband. On what would have been Saget's 67th birthday, she penned a heartfelt tribute via Instagram, which read, in part, "I'll never stop feeling like the luckiest person on Earth to have had the privilege of spending 6 years with this amazing man. Life is short and we never know how long we are going to be here."

For a long time, Tim Weatherspoon and Kelly Rowland kept their relationship away from the spotlight. And when Weatherspoon was ready to make things official, he did it in an unconventional way. "It happened on Skype," Rowland disclosed on "The Queen Latifah Show." The pair was obviously miles apart — Rowland had traveled to Europe. "He asked me first on Skype, and I was like, 'We're so far away from each other' ... But it was so late. I remember we were both just kinda like, just honestly, just staring at each other." 

Rowland undoubtedly agreed. She was later spotted in a show-stopping 4 carat cushion-cut diamond ring, whose value was placed in the lower six figures. Weatherspoon and Rowland's 2014 Costa Rican wedding was a minimalist event with a thirty-person guest list including her former girl group band members, Beyoncé Knowles and Michelle Williams. Rowland's ideal wedding, however, would have been even less parked. "I think we really just want it to be us and our pastor. That's it," she'd said in an interview with People, prior to her big day. "I mean, we are the only two that [are] going to be in the marriage."

Fashion icon Diane von Furstenberg, famed for the invention of the wrap dress, had an on and off relationship with media mogul Barry Diller for years. Every time he proposed, she said no. One New York drive, however, brought them together for life. The sweethearts caught sight of an elderly couple walking across an avenue. As the husband was shielding his wife, it dawned on them that they aspired to be so loving. "We both thought the same thing: that we wanted to be that couple someday. We said it to each other right then," von Furstenberg revealed in a chat with O Magazine. 

And when she was geared up for the ride of a lifetime, she suggested it casually. "One year I didn't know what to give him for his birthday, and I called him and said, 'You know, if you want, for your birthday I'll marry you,'" von Furstenberg revealed. Diller enthusiastically jumped in. 

Although they had a short civil wedding, he pulled off an unexpected romantic gesture. "This is so Barry," von Furstenberg shared. "He gave me 26 wedding rings, for the 26 years we had not been married."