Getting engaged during a pandemic makes many obvious elements of planning a wedding more challenging, the obvious one being actually setting a date! One aspect I hadn’t actually thought about being difficult until I arrived at it though, was how to ‘propose’ to my bridesmaids and maid of honour.

I know I could have just phoned them up or arranged a zoom, but I really wanted to do something special for them and this just didn’t seem personal enough. I’ve known these women most (in some cases all!) of my life, and I wanted to show them how much they mean to me. So, I had to get creative and think about how, or what, I could do that would be meaningful and provide a beautiful memory itself.

Below I am going to share all the details about my bridesmaid proposal and links to the items I chose, along with my top tips, in the hope that it might be helpful to any brides-to-be out there similarly thinking about how to make their proposal magical.

The Proposal Method: The Bridesmaid Box

After doing a little research I decided that the idea of creating a ‘bridesmaid box’ was the way I wanted to go, but I struggled to find anything off-the-shelf that fit the brief of what I was looking for.

Nick and I are hoping to get married in France, so I wanted it to have a French theme, and I knew I wanted it to be, or include, something that they could keep and cherish forever.

The Box

The first thing I needed to get right was the box. After a lot of research on options (I hunted through Etsy, eBay, Amazon and countless stores via Google) I decided to go with a wooden box from Hobby Craft. I felt a wooden box would feel more luxurious and something that was ‘keepable’, yet actually cost less than lots of the printed cardboard boxes available.

I also wanted them to be personalised to each person, so decided to get laser cut wooden name tags from Etsy. I then painted these (although you can buy them painted) and hot-glue-gunned them onto my boxes. Personalised boxes completed!

The Contents

Next was what to fill them with. I did actually think about this whilst looking for the boxes, as obviously the size of the box would impact what I could actually fit in them!

As mentioned, my theme was French, in keeping with us (hopefully 🤞) getting married in France. I wanted the box to contain some indulgent edible treats and also some keepsakes. I also know that our colour theme is likely to be a pale green or blue to match the shutters on lots of the French venues we like. With that in mind I decided to go with:

A custom-designed proposal card, wrapped in silk ribbon.
A selection of photographs of each bridesmaid and me.
Champagne: A half bottle of Moet & Chandon 375ml
Macarons & Madeliene’s
A beautiful satin scrunchy (I love satin, it feels so bridal!)
French Vanilla & Lavender wax melts
A lavender & honey candle

For the proposal card, I designed these myself, purchased some luxurious paper stock and printed these at home. I then gave the edges a soft torn look by placing a ruler on the paper and carefully tearing the edge along the line of the ruler. The ribbon tied around them kept the photographs attached to the back of the card and added a really bridal feel.

The photographs I printed at home on a matt photo paper and tore the edges, using the same method. I also chose to do these in black and white, partly so the colours didn’t clash with the contents of the box and partly because it felt more memory-like.

I wanted to go with Champagne as the theme was French and so prosecco wouldn’t cut it, but my boxes wouldn’t fit a full bottle. After a lot of shopping around, I found these Moet & Chandon bottles that were a nice half bottle size (rather than the smaller 200ml options) and they fitted perfectly!

The macarons and madeleines added a nice French foodie touch. Nick suggested a croissant, but that just didn’t feel like a practical option. 😅

Packaging wise, I used a compostable food wrap, eco craft shredded paper & pale green string to finish the macarons and madeleines.

The Proposals

Although I could have probably posted them and done the whole things sooner over zoom (rather than make them all wait 4 months!) I really wanted to do it in person. That said, I couldn’t bring myself to wait until we were all allowed to gather together. So, once two households were allowed to mix outside in gardens, one by one I met each bridesmaid and surprised them with their box.

In hindsight I am actually so glad I did it this way because that meant I got a special moment with each one of them individually, to soak up the moment and make it all about them.

My maid of honour and I had arranged a lunch, and so I saved her box for that and she was the last one to find out! Every moment with each one of them was so special and it was so nice to show them how much they mean to me – because they really are incredible and I am so lucky to have them!

My top tips for creating your own Bridesmaid Box and doing the proposal:

Make it personal. Personalise some of the elements and include old photos, looking through them together was one of the best bits of the actual proposals.
Tie it to your wedding theme. As we want to get married in France, that was pretty simple for us. Incorporating the colours you are thinking of going with is also a great way of doing this.
Do it one by one! I honestly really wanted to do it as a group thing, but this was so much more intimate and special.
Try and make it a surprise. My MOH was hard to surprise (because she’s been dropping hints and asking not-so-subtle questions pretty much since the day we got engaged) but I managed to make it a total surprise for all my 4 bridesmaids, and their reactions made the moment all the more special.
Make it keep-worthy. I went for wooden boxes because I felt these made a better option for keeping. I think it would be lovely for them to keep photos from the wedding in them in the future, for example.
Splash out on nice finishing touches, like the paper stock you use or the ribbon to finish.
If you’re not so handy at design, why not get the cards designed for you? There are some amazing designers out there, like Paper Cactus Prints or Emma Louise Castle, who could even make these in conjunction with your save-the-date cards so that everything is cohesive.

I hope this has offered some inspiration for you and your bridesmaid proposal. With all of the above said though, the truly special part is getting to ask them to be your bridesmaids. That in itself is the meaningful part, so if the budget doesn’t allow for treats and gifts then at the end of the day that stuff doesn’t really matter, it’s just about showing your closest girlfriends that you love them!