Forget wedding planners

Forget wedding planners - now there are PROPOSAL planners to help your man pop the question - We're all familiar with how wedding planners can navigate us around the tricky maze of getting married.

But now a new industry has emerged, for helping men pop the question in the first place.

Proposal planners have discovered a demand for lavish scenarios, be it white doves, helicopter rides, a favourite musician - all with a photographer on hand to record the magic moment.

I do: Whether it's a trip of a lifetime to Paris or a surprise in Central Park, proposal planners can help plot the most memorable way to pop the question

Of course such imagination and execution doesn't come cheap. Planners can charge thousands of dollars to plot proposals as meticulously as the wedding day itself.

Sarah Pease of New York-based Brilliant Event Planning says she only focused on weddings until she heard how one friend's proposal involved an engagement ring at the bottom of a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

'I figured there must be a better way,' she told the New York Times.

Ms Pease offers decidedly more romantic options – among the ideas she lists on her website are a 'glittering New York City evening' and 'the romance of a morning in Paris'.

Her fee is $500 for coming up with a proposal idea but can run up to $12,000 if you want her to orchestrate the entire process.

However, men have come under fire for using the service with critics arguing they should have the imagination to come up with their own idea.

Unsurprisingly, this is something proposal planners don't agree with.

A proposal is 'the one thing the guy has control over,' and 'they have one shot to do it right'

Michael A Bloomberg, of An Exclusive Engagement in Fort Worth, Texas, told the Times that prospective husbands come to him because it's 'the one thing the guy has control over'.

He admits most find romance bewildering, and they know they just have one shot.

Michele Williamson of The Heart Bandits, a Los Angeles-based marriage proposal firm, agrees, especially given that women have an array of aides to consult when it comes to organising the wedding.

The idea is much less mercenary than it sounds, she wrote on the Huffington Post.

'The client doesn't just give us cash and say "Come up with a great proposal idea",' she explained.

'We interview the client and ask him a ton of questions about his girlfriend, how they met, and other special details about their relationship. The client spends a lot of time during this interview process answering questions most men probably couldn't even remember.

'Next, we use the interview responses to put together a proposal and tell a story about the couple in a creative way. The client is very involved in the entire process,' she added.

So, guys, even if you enlist the help of a proposal planner, you'll still need to come up with a few romantic ideas of your own first. ( dailymail.co.uk )