January 17, 2023 / 5:43 AM— It seemed like an ordinary date; Dinner at a plush restaurant followed by a romantic stroll around the restaurant grounds. But suddenly, a smiling staff member appeared out of nowhere, guiding the couple through a fairytale-like gate to the steps of an English-style chapel.
Anniversaire began fielding inquiries from anxious would-be grooms starting in 2014. The trend was fueled by the rise of social media, said Fumika Nishimura, a"proposal planner" who also arranges weddings for the firm in Tokyo. "We get a lot of women asking for re-dos," Nishimura said. One couple — who had already scheduled their wedding — forked over extra fees to schedule a luxurious reenactment of their engagement at the company's lavish wedding hall.
Nishimura helps jittery suitors compose their pitches. Unless it's short and to the point, like"Marry me!" she advises reading from carefully composed notes. Some men also fret about which leg to kneel on With one particularly tongue-tied customer, Nishimura ended up writing the whole proposal herself.
A young man presents his girlfriend with a bouquet of 108 roses just before asking her to marry him, inside the"chapel" of the wedding and engagement consultancy firm Anniversaire, in Tokyo, Japan.— from actual customers — aren't exactly"Notting Hill," but they seem perfectly calibrated to activate the tear glands.
If that’s what determines the answer, you’ve got problems.