Proposals

A proposal is the smallest thing we arrange and the one with the most ways to go wrong. The whole craft of it is keeping the number of people who know as low as it can be, and building something that still works if the day moves.

Tell us the trip you are already planning. The proposal goes inside it rather than beside it, and the trip itself should be good enough that nobody is asking why you were so keen on that particular sundowner spot.

How we set it up

We tell the camp manager and nobody else. The ring goes into the camp safe on arrival if you would rather not carry it. The guide is briefed that there is a stop, not what the stop is for, so the afternoon drive that ends at a table on the edge of the escarpment looks like every other afternoon drive until it does not.

What we will not do is stage it in front of an audience you have not agreed to. No dining room, no round of applause from strangers, no camp lined up on the lawn unless that is genuinely what you want. Some people do, which is a different and much easier plan.

Choosing the spot

The setting matters less than the hour. Anywhere in the bush is extraordinary at six in the evening and ordinary at noon, so we work out where the light lands and put you there.

Beyond that it is a question of what you want underfoot. A rock above a river. The end of a jetty. A clearing the vehicle stops at because there is a fire already lit. On the coast, low tide and a sandbar the boat has to reach. We will tell you which of these your camp can actually do, rather than describing one that sounds good and hoping.

Photographs

Decide early which matters more, because you cannot fully have both. A photographer hidden nearby is one more person who knows, and if the moment moves to the following evening they have to move too.

The compromise most people are happy with is nothing during and someone twenty minutes after, while the light holds and before you have told anybody. Those are the pictures people put on the wall anyway.

Afterwards

Tell us what you want the evening to be once it has happened. Some people want the whole camp told and champagne on the fire. Others want dinner brought to their own deck and no fuss at all. Both are easy. Neither is arranged by default.

Good to know

• Carry the ring in hand luggage. Always.
• Give the camp a night or two before the moment. A proposal on the arrival evening runs into a delayed flight sooner or later.
• If you are proposing on a beach at low tide, the tide decides the hour, not you.
• Tell us the answer afterwards. We are nosy, and the rest of the trip often wants adjusting.