Low-Key Celebrity Proposal Stories That Will Still Melt Your Heart

Jessica Biel told host James Corden on The Late Late Show that she had no idea now-husband Justin Timberlake was going to propose when the couple decided to go snowboarding on their property in Montana in 2011.

"We were in Montana on a piece of property that we owned at the time. We had snowboarded all day. It was in the middle of the winter. Waist-high snow. We were [in] head-to-toe snowboarding outfits — hats, gloves, everything," Biel said.

"And we go up to the property to just check out how the foundation is looking. And all of a sudden, he gets down onto his knees and just sinks into the snow," she added, laughing. "And then he looks up at me and holds up this ring and it was the most lovely, surprising, hilarious … "

"Bold to go [snowboarding] with a ring in your pocket," joked Corden. "That is not a decision I would make. That can only backfire. … For the first time, I'm questioning Justin Timberlake."

Oscar winner Riz Ahmed thought he'd picked out a word-perfect proposal for his now-wife, writer Fatima Farheen Mirza  — but he joked to Jimmy Kimmel he thought she might have been underwhelmed by his "corny" gesture.

"We went out to the park, one of the few things we could do at that point in lockdown, and we kind of had a little picnic and you know, I popped the question," Ahmed said. "And she looked up and was like, 'You're joking.' "

"Maybe the way I proposed didn't help because she's a novelist, she's amazing with words," he continued. "She loves a bit of Scrabble. So we were actually playing Scrabble and I did that corny thing where I stole all the correct letters up and spelled out 'Will you marry me?' " 

The actress was caught completely by surprise when Fischer woke her up and handed her an engagement ring. "I got you this," he said, and asked if she wanted him to get down on one knee. Schumer, wearing ear plugs and a night mask, said no to the knee but yes to the award-winning chef's proposal (and married him in a spur-of-the-moment wedding less than a week later).

"He proposed to me at Minetta Tavern [an N.Y.C. restaurant], and he didn't have a ring so I was like, 'mmm, nah,' " Ratajkowski recalled of now-husband Bear-McClard's proposal, during a Tonight Show appearance. "And then he took the paper clip that the bill was paid with and made me a ring which I actually thought was really romantic."

During their first sit-down interview after getting engaged, Markle and Prince Harry divulged details of the royal's proposal. "It was a cozy night," she told the BBC. "We were roasting chicken. It was just an amazing surprise. It was so sweet and natural and very romantic. He got down on one knee."

Harry added: "It was a really nice moment — it was just the two of us. I think I managed to catch her by surprise."

Despite originally getting engaged in late 2009, Bell and Shepard proved their commitment to each other by getting engaged once more following the legalization of same-sex marriage. ".@daxshepard1 will you marry me? Xo #marriageequality #loveislove," wrote the Bad Moms actress, sending out a tweet addressed to her beloved. His response? "DOMA is dead. Prop 8 is dead," Shepard tweeted. "Now let's bring my big, gay marriage to @IMKristenBell to Life!!!"

Clooney told Ellen DeGeneres he had his aunt Rosemary Clooney's song "Why Shouldn't I" playing in the background, had cooked dinner for himself and now-wife Amal and had hidden the ring in preparation for the big moment. "I've got it all set up, timed out and the song is coming and she gets up to go wash the dishes, which she's never done," George explained. "And I'm like, 'What are you doing?' and she comes back in. And finally I said, 'Ya know, I blew out the candle' and I said, 'I think the lighter's in the box behind you.' And she reaches around and she pulls out the box and I've got just the ring sitting in there and she pulls it out and she looks at it and she's like, 'It's a ring' — like as if somebody had left it there some other time."

The human rights lawyer, who was incredulous once she grasped what was happening, kept the Oscar winner on his knee for 25 minutes. "'Look, I hope the answer is yes, but I need an answer. I'm 52 and I could throw my hip pretty soon,'" George recalled saying.

Harris shared his and now-husband Burtka's two romantic engagement stories with Out magazine in 2012. "David first proposed to me five years ago on the actual street corner where we met," he revealed. "We were on our way to an event at a casino 45 minutes out of town in a limousine, and David wanted to stop for some reason that I didn't quite get. I thought he wanted to get some booze or something. And then he got on one knee and proposed, and I was so freaked out by it that I said, 'Yes,' but I didn't know what it meant. Then I got the ring and loved it, and a year later, on Valentine's Day, I proposed to him in Santa Monica."

According to Will Smith, he and now-wife Jada Pinkett Smith actually appreciate that their nontraditional proposal was a simple affair, but it's safe to say it wasn't your typical engagement event. "We were just lying there, going to sleep," Smith recalled to PEOPLE in 2005. "I looked over at her, and I said, 'Hey, we might be real good married. Wassup? You wanna marry me?' Unplanned. No ring. Not the classic proposal. She said yes. It's really weird when you live the kind of lifestyle that we live: Simplicity becomes the jewel," he added.

Rogen was so tense after picking up the ring that he nixed his intricate plans and went for an impromptu — and hilariously NSFW — proposal. "I had all these elaborate plans, you know, and when I got the ring it was so nerve-racking having this ring, like literally I felt like someone had given me a truckload of heroin to hold on to," Rogen joked on Conan of proposing to longtime love Miller.

"So I had all these plans but like the day I got the ring, literally the second I got it, I walked right upstairs to where she was to propose to her," he continued. "But she was in our closet changing and she was literally only in her underwear and her boobs were out. And I had already kind of started, I was like 'Oh man, her boobs are out, that's not part of the plan. I didn't picture it like this and I know she didn't picture it like this.' No little girl is like 'It'll happen in a closet with my titties out.' I figured the only appropriate thing was to place the ring on her nipple," he added.

Saturday Night Live star Bryant told host Seth Meyers about how longtime boyfriend O'Malley proposed to her, noting that she returned home from work at SNL one night in October 2016 to find her and O'Malley's dog wearing a bowtie. "I was like, 'My dog doesn't wear a bowtie! Where is he going tonight?' Basically, the second I shut the door, a man — who I discovered was Conner — frantically came around the corner and was just like, 'Will you marry me?!' No box. No 'I love you.' "

She continued: "Just a man in full terror standing very far from a dog in a bowtie, just holding a loose ring going, 'Will you marry me?' I was like, 'What?' I truly couldn't comprehend what was happening, and I kept saying, 'Is this a joke? Are you doing a joke?' And then I said, 'Of course I'll marry you. I love you.' And it was really nice."