CHENNAI: How do you imagine your wedding proposal to be? Your partner going down on one knee with a ring in his hand, and popping the question under the moonlight on the beach with soft music in the background? Well, notwithstanding the risk that your partner may have arthritis or a knee problem, or perhaps is susceptible to allergies, your idea of romance doesn’t have to remain a dream.
As we count down to Valentine’s Day, ‘surprise planners’ have their set of surprises planned, and their calendar for the week is choc-o-bloc! Since this has become a trend lately, people find it easier to organise and arrange a perfect surprise to sweep their loved ones off their feet.
“We’ve been getting a lot of orders. In fact, we started getting orders from December itself. It is going to be quite a challenge,” says Sakthivel Pannerselvam, founder, the6.in.From sending small gifts, including roses and chocolates to enacting scenes from movies, the packages are aplenty. While some surprise planners have a fixed set of packages, there are customised surpises too. Aishwarya Shivaji, Amaze Surprise Planners, has introduced a couple of new packages including customised songs (both melody and rap version), proposal on a theatre screen, cinema proposals, bike stunts, and speed art proposals.
“The biggest surprise I gave my girlfriend was when we did the scene from the movie Remo — where Sivakarthikeyan proposes to the heroine. I did the same for my girlfriend — with the ring, firecrackers, flowers and everything,” says Augustine, who did the flash mob surprise for his girlfriend, prior to this surprise. “The Remo proposal cost `3.5 lakh. We do have customers who spend `1.5 lakh for a whole day surprise,” Sakthivel.
Tiny Surprises has introduced a special flipbook, where you can surprise your partner by just flipping pages. “We wanted to do something small and affordable. While most surprises can be a bit expensive, this one starts at `499. We also did a dummy three-foot Dairy Milk Silk, which was priced at `2,500,” explains Vijay Srinivas, Tiny Surprise. The flipbooks come with different writings like — love you to the moon and back; we have great chemistry, you complete me, etc.
The Majors and Minors surprise planners, on the other hand, have introduced beachside dinner date, movie night and a gifting surprise. “The gifting is basically a creative way of proposing, where the girl will receive a lot of gifts — all her favourites. For instance, the one that we are planning will have a Persian cat, chocolates and other food items, accessories, etc, and finally, he will propose to her,” adds Priyanka Deepak, The Majors, and Minors surprise planners.
Are all surprises planned only by men? Planners admit that most of their customers are women. “I have noticed that 80% of our clients are women. And there are married women too who want to surprise their husbands, not just for V-Day but other occasions as well,” says Sakthivel.
Ramya M, a city-based photographer who proposed to her boyfriend last year on February 14, says, that she is thankful for these planners. “Until few days before V-Day, I wasn’t sure how to propose to my boyfriend. My surprise planners organised a beautiful flash mob proposal, and he was really surprised,” she adds.
The surprise proposals, especially for Valentine’s Day, have to be booked a month or two in advance. Usually, the planners can do up to 20 proposals a day. Sakthivel says that the prices for the surprise proposals usually start from `3,000 onwards and can go up to `3.5 lakh, depending on the package, number of people involved in it, the gifts and also the place.
For details about pricing and packages, and also to place orders…
Tiny Surprise —
@TinySurprise
The Majors & Minors surprise — @TheMajorsandMinors
Amaze Surprise Planners —
@AmazeSurprise
The6.in —
@the6.in