Now...

Do you honestly think (and I am truly curious here) that a wedding proposal would be a good final load for a cups and balls rotuine?
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It worked for me! I guess it all depends on the situation, setting and the person you are proposing to.

My wife to be knew she was getting a ring, she just didn't know when.

I had been hired to entertain for a big corp. event, so on the night before I had to leave for the job; I had my girlfriend over for a nice romantic dinner. After dinner, I had asked her to critique some of the magic I was going to do at this event. The last routine I did was a chop cup routine. She never new what hit her when I produced the ring box. Till this day, she still talks about it.

As I said, it all depends on the situation, and of course, the girl you are proposing to!

Tony

Hey onelegtwoshoes. Kudos on taking that big step. I wish you all the happiness in the world.
The magic effect that I would use is the Floating Rose by Kevin James. At the end, you could put the ring in the rose!

Best Wishes,

Alfredo

Well - the weekend is over. We hope that all went well.

Onelegtwoshoes: You know your girlfriend, and magic can totally be used in a romantic way. I agree with kOnO that magic can be used to make others feel special. Everyone is different. The thought you are putting in to the proposal will be appreciated, and you are using your gifts which makes it special. Since you are looking at Christmas, perhaps you could have some nice earrings as one of your presents to her. Shortly thereafter, you could ask for one or more of the earrings and offer to show her something. Make them dissappear and pull out a set of nested boxes or bags, the earing being in the 2nd to last compartment. The ring being the extra something inside... Another idea is to do a zebra belnding silk routine. Take out the white silk in one hand as you tell her how special she is. Take out the black silk in the other as you tell her how she makes you feel. Roll them together, ball them up, and show they have been replaced by a combo silk of both colors. From the silk produce the box.... Good luck, and don't let the nay-sayers get you down. - Chris

So many suggestions and nobody did 'warn' that guy??

I used magic (a flash paper type of production) to produce the ring when I proposed, but only cause I knew she was going to say yes. I'm a fairly straight forward person, so I didn't give a corny "my love burns as bright as this fire" speech, but asked in a fairly simple way. Ultimately a magic proposal isn't for everyone. I know many women who would slap a guy if he did a trick during a proposal, but some rare women understand this sick obsession that we call magic. I say good luck to onelegtwoshoes.

Thanx KoNo for your quote
"I think anyone who can not use their magic to make someone else the center of attention needs to take a good hard look at their presentations and reasons for performing magic.
Anyone who wants entertain using his skills, needs to know that if you can not make the audience feel special, your magic will never be much more then a self-satisfying hobby."


Words of wisdom right there!


Im still on the fence on whether or not I will do the magic proposal.


I would like to formally apologize to Chris Berry, I was not a gentlemen in my response, and Im sorry. I should learn to take the good with the bad, and I understand you are all just trying to help. I would like to thank you all for the ideas, and please keep them coming.



Chris Berry I am truly sorry.


-Cody

Cody,

Wow, thanks. You didn't have to apologize. I've just seen people do this and have my reasons for being against it (goes along with reasons of why using magic to pick up on women *cough*jaysankey*cough* is a bad idea IMHO).

I do hope for the best. Good luck.

I have 2 things to add to this topic:

First of all, I saw an amazing trick the other evening that could tie in rather nicely.

Mike Close came and lectured in San Francisco and he did Simon Aronson's sideswiped. In it, you pull out an instruction card that says "worlds greatest magic trick" on the back and has the instructions on the front. The premise is that you just got the instructions recently and don't really know the trick.

You allow your assistant to read the first of the instructions out loud "choose a beautiful, intelligent assistant" but you cover the rest of the instructions with your hand because they contain the "secret".

You hold the instruction card in your hand during the entire trick as you read off the instructions one at a time.

According to the instructions, the card is selected, signed, put back in the deck and the deck is wrapped with rubber bands and dropped in your pocket.

The last instruction says to "bring the trick to an amazing conclusion". At which point you say "I told you this card holds the secret" and you turn it towards the audience to reveal that the instructions have changed into the selected card with the signature. It's relatively easy to do and quite good.

You've got time to have custom printed cards so I would have the card say "Worlds greatest prediction" or "how to tell the future" or "life altering information about the future" or something ot that effect.

Tell her that you spent a thousand dollars on this information about the future because the guy at the magic store swore it would give you valuable information. Do the whole routine but before you show the face say "there are two predictions here. The first one is the name of your card, that's kind of weak, but the second one says it's got the name of the woman I should marry" or "the man holding this card should marry the woman who's name is on this card" and then turn it over to show her signature.

The signature part is so unbelieveable that she won't see it coming.

On top of that, Simon mentions in the instructions that this is a perfect effect for a deck switch. When a deck is wrapped in rubber bands and dropped in your pocket and you pull a deck out of your pocket that is wrapped in rubber bands your audience always assumes it's the same one. Especially if the card they just selected is noticeably missing from the cold deck. You could have the deck printed to say marry me on the faces or you could put the card in the card box before it gets rubber banded and when you pull the duplicate card box out have a ring in there instead. All sorts of things could be done. This effect is available from dealers and it's in the book, Simply Simon.

Now for the second thing I wanted to add. I looked over my previous post and realized that the big reason, the one that made me decide the a magic effect wasn't the way for me to propose, wasn't in there. The biggest reason for me was insincerety. Even though it's all in fun and, as Krono nicely put it, we are trying to make our audince feel special, we lie to our audience during the course of a routine. We are deceiving their senses and their minds. I didn't want to feel like there was any deception, untruth or insincerety in anything I said during my proposal. Even the presentation I gave above has a level of deception which I wouldn't want to be the starting place for my marriage.

I hope you like the idea, whether you use it or not and I hope you recognize that I'm not trying to talk you into or out of using magic to propose. I spent a lot of time thinking about it myself and I wanted you to see the reasons I came to the conclusion I did.

Dave

Thanks Dave.


Thats a great Idea for a trick. I have since decided against using magic to propose. I realized I was just looking for a reason to stand out from the rest in the way I propose.

But that's not the important part, what is truly important is the fact that I have found a girl that I WANT TO MARRY.

I am going to ask her on christmas eve, in front of a roaring fireplace, christmas music, and just her and I.


Heres hoping I don't screw it up.


I still really like the way you all have put forth effort to help me out. Lets keep the tricks coming just for those who would like to propose that way, or ask a girl or guy (no discriminating) out.


thanks again


-COdy

Onelegtwoshoes: This isn't magic but it might make for a nice touch. When you propose, do it standing next to the Christmas tree. Have the ring hidden on a branch at about chest height. As you ask her slide the ring of the branch.

Make sure you don't have any flashpaper in your pocket.

I am not getting married anytime soon but I know EXACTLY how I will propose to my wife. There is only one effect that is perfect for this situation. THE FLOATING ROSE!!! The first time I saw the effect, I knew it was the ulitmate way to propose to a girl. It is very romantic and perfect. The way I will do it is to first get her father approve and have him in it with me. I will do it on christmas eve at her partents house with her family and friends. Her dad will ask me if I could do some magic after dinner and I saw sure, but I do only one thing.

I will bring her up, make the room dim and have her had put on Peter Grabriel "In your eyes" (now the ironic part is that this song has been one of my favorite songs since I was 12, and I didn't get into magic until I was 18, and when I did I realized that Copperfield use the song on his tv show for the floating rose, ironic) The song is the perfect song to tell a girl how you feel about her and love her.

So I do the floating rose and produce the rose, but the rose is a jewerely case in shape of a rose (I got it from Petricia and Mia Ring inside Rose) and I open it up get down on one knee and do my thing. I think it is the perfect, most romantic, beautiful way to ask a girl to marry you. It is magic, because love is real magic and your marriage the day you get married should be one of the most magical days of your life.

This is just my 2 cents.

Magicman02.........................i like it!