[Chobohoya]

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My wife and I discussed marriage many times before I ever "popped the question". We had already agreed on most of the tough subjects: kids, holidays, religion, etc...

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I think this is either normal or becoming so. I got engaged back in march, and we had been discussing everything under the sun for a long time. If you can't talk to someone about this sort of thing before you get married, I wish you the best of luck, but you're probably going to end up as a divorce statistic.

I asked her father for permission (he said yes), and I would reccommend doing this to everyone. Even if you know he's going to say no, you've put the effort in, and that can count for a lot with your spouse and her family/friends.

As for actually asking, this sort of thing totally depends on the type of people you are and the nature of your relationship. Some people are just more laid back or non-romantic. People love to generalize, but that will get you in a lot of trouble in a moment this (potentially) big. Do your homework and find out what she wants and expects.

My fiancee "knew" that I was going to ask her on our anniversary, so when I actually did it a few weeks before that, she was shocked, delighted, ecstatic, etc. I was very fortunate that her God-mother is a jeweler and good friends with her mother. I was able to enlist her help in getting a ring that was PERFECT for us while telling my fiancee that it wouldn't be ready until april, and maybe not then. So when I took her back to the site of the very first time I asked her out, she thought I was just being my usual romantic self. Of course that was true, but more than she knew [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] She said yes, but she was so shocked it took her a full 5 seconds or so to get a word out.