Some people call it the first day of spring, but within the jewelry industry, March 20 also is known as National Proposal Day. Not sure who created the holiday, but it is one more way to highlight this major life event and get people thinking about engagements and engagement rings.
Engagements are likely to be plentiful in 2022, and celebrity engagements such as those of Colton Underwood and Jordan C. Brown, Simone Biles and Jonathan Owens, and Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly may inspire even more people to pop the question.
The challenge for some is: How do you plan the perfect proposal? That’s where luxury event planners Brian Kelly and Sean Koski come in. Kelly asked Koski to marry him after 10 years together, and, as a result, Kelly has become a kind of proposal expert.
Kelly’s September 2021 surprise proposal to Koski got national attention when it was featured on the Bridal Guide magazine website. Think of him as an engagement influencer if you will, especially with a focus on how to find support from the jewelry industry to find the ideal ring and shopping experience.
“I never imagined that the journey we shared together would be something I’d be sharing with so many, but after eight-plus years event planning [at Ticket2Events], I’m excited to share the process along the way,” Kelly says.
JCK reached out to Kelly to get some advice on proposals, picking an engagement ring, and how he found a custom piece that was right for him.
“The freedom of the same-sex proposal, so to speak, was that there seems to be no ‘traditional’ rules,” Kelly says. “I wanted to do something that felt right for us and that, perhaps, if someone else sees this [they] can have something to reference. Being able to share in the experience, creating our own rules that work for us was important.”
Kelly says he started by thinking about what kind of ring he wanted. An eternity band felt right because Kelly says he knew Koski would appreciate the sentimentality behind it.
“When I was finally set on popping the question, I knew it was an eternity band in particular that I’d be shopping for. I believed that the importance of the gesture wasn’t going to be measured in the size of the ring, and I knew my fiancé would agree,” Kelly says. “I felt that the only way to honor my feelings of the past 10 years together and the many years I wish to come, was with an eternity band.”
Kelly says he shopped around, and he finally decided to go custom to find a highly personal band for Koski and himself.
“I wanted to create something that represented us as a couple,” Kelly says. “I did not see anything out there that really highlighted same-sex couples, so I knew I had to create something custom that was unique and represented us. I loved the idea that I got two rings for us to match.”
Kelly ended up finding matching eternity bands at Forever Companies/12Fifteen after he saw their rings on Instagram. He started with a telephone consultation and completed the design mostly through virtual meetings.
“The compassion about it all, wanting to share my love story as a same-sex couple, and level of comfort I felt immediately after our first talk really let me know that it was perfect match,” Kelly says. “After the first meeting they knew exactly the look I wanted to achieve, even taking my vision during the design process and making it into a reality without feeling overwhelmed about it all.”
To propose, Kelly says he wanted to be at the beach, but he had to have a backup plan. That became his friend Lauren’s house, where Kelly prepped what he wanted to say on a cocktail napkin and filled the room with flowers. The “yes” Kelly received at the proposal tells the rest of the story, he says.
Top: Two matching eternity bands help get a “yes” from Sean Koski when Brian Kelly popped the question during a surprise proposal. Their ring story is one way that couples are sharing their engagements online and on social media as National Proposal Day approaches (all photos courtesy of Brian Kelly).
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