A Proposal In The National History Museum

by Chiara Atik · May 19, 2010

    What is it about cheesy proposal stories that always make us swoon, no matter how goofy they are?? Jason Meritt combined his girlfriend's two favorite things, museums and typewriters, when he popped the question this past weekend at the National Museum of American History.-

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    Jason had carefully constructed a...proposal message thing (I don't know.) out of the keys of a 1940s type writer inside a ribbon case. He wanted to propose to her in front of the Underwood Typewriter in the military section of the museum. However, he was afraid that the metal...proposal thing...would set off the metal detectors at the museum entrance, hence ruining the surprise. So the crafty lovebird SECRETLY MET with the museum's floor manager Erin Nielson the night before, who agreed to keep the proposal message thing overnight. (Uhm, good thing it wasn't a bomb?)

    The Floor Manager agreed to lure the couple up to the museum's roof the next day by offering them a signed copy of Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life. (This story is getting shadier and shadier, isn't it?) On the roof, Nielson surreptitiously handed Meritt his ribbon case, where "Will you marry me" was spelled out. And, as you probably expected, she said yes.

    Museum proposals are apparently all the rage in the city: the Butterfly Pavillion in the National Museum of Natural History is the frequent site of proposals. More creepily, the forensic anthropology lab was also the backdrop for a romantic proposal once. A visitor to the Written In Bone lab had arranged for a slide in an interactive microscope feature to read "Will You Marry Me". They must have been big CSI fans?

    [Smithsonian's Blog, via DCist]