Creating a pattern on the ground to be seen from high above is generally an easy task, but can also be very difficult depending on the medium you choose to work with. Most proposals made to be seen from high above are usually going to be made in similar ways. Each of them are going to be unique and have interesting challenges. But one thing they all have in common is planning.
First of all, you are going to want to find the location that you want to write the proposal. This is very important for several reasons. First being that you don’t want to get arrested for trespassing, or in the case of crop circles, damaging property. Secondly, you are going to need to measure the space you have so you can decide on the size and shape of your lettering and design. Last but certainly not least, the location must be one that you can actually do the proposal. It must be large enough to make the proposal legible and in a place that you know she will be able to see it easily.
I’ll touch on recommendations for the individual kinds of ground writing in a minute, but first let’s talk about one of the must have items for pulling this off. In my opinion, at least for someone with my lackluster skills at creating things like this, templates would be necessary. You could have a local sign company make a relatively inexpensive template for you. There are two types of templates you could make; a stencil style so you can work inside, or you can have them create large letters for you to lay out to make impressions with. Or I suppose you could just have them create giant letters for you to place on the ground. Doing this is great for standard fonts, but even better if you would like make the lettering a bit more fancy. All you have to do is make sure it is lined up when you start making it. Now that I think of it, you could make your own “Hollywood” sign and place it on a hillside. That would be sweet.
Writing your marriage proposal in the sand is probably one of the most common and is pretty forgiving. If you screw it up, you can always fix it by smoothing the sand out and starting all over. It is kind of like having an Etch-a-Sketch with a targeted eraser so you don’t have to wipe out the whole thing if you mess one part up. Sand drawing is also done on a small to medium scale, so you can make one without any detailed plans or a layout unless you are going to make it in cursive. My biggest tip for this one is to make sure to check with the place you are going to do it and make sure they do not rake the sand to smooth out the beach on the day / night you decide to do it. That would be terrible. Also, you may want to ask the place where you are doing it if you can rope the area off to keep beach strollers off of it both while you are making it and after as well. If you can have someone there to be a lookout, that is best.
Snow marriage proposal lettering is a bit more difficult because it is less forgiving on mistakes and much harder to cover your tracks in and out of the scene. A snow writing proposal is going to be a smaller size than most of the other ground writing styles (generally speaking), so you can do this one even easier without a template. Just remember that it is unforgiving so I recommend using one if at all possible. I would recommend using the full letter template as opposed to a stencil for this one. The full letter template will compact the snow underneath leaving cleaner lines and hopefully not create any grass showing through the lettering. Having the signs made and laid out on the ground could be cool because choosing a color could make the letters pop, but it would take away some of the romance of you making the letters yourself.
If you are like me and hardly ever cut the grass, mowing your marriage proposal in the grass can be something fun to do, especially if you get nagged about it quite often. This one is pretty easy to do and probably does not need a template, but if you were going to use one, I would go for the stencil so you could cut inside the lines. Just let the grass get nice and tall (not hard for me to do) and then cut it in only the area of the letters of your proposal. You can also go out and by a heavy pipe or get a 2″ diameter piece of PVC pipe, cap it, and fill it with water to give it weight. Use that to roll over the grass once it is cut to get it laid down all in the same direction. This is a trick that people use to make their lawn look like a baseball field.
Now my personal favorite idea for writing a marriage proposal on the ground is to make “crop circles”. This is a large scale project and will require the most time. Since I am certainly no expert on making crop circles, I have looked around and found some great resources for how to make them.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/unexplained-phenomena/crop-circle5.htm
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Crop-Circle
Have you ever made any ground writing and have tips for us to share? Email us so we can share them with everyone.
Lastly, while you are feeling romantic, show her just a fraction of how much you love her by sending a bouquet of flowers tomorrow. You will be the biggest stud she knows.
