But one romantic Islander decided to use a visit to St Ouen’s beach and the medium of sand to ask his girlfriend to marry him.
After months of planning Andy Stentiford got down on one knee on Saturday to ask girlfriend Anna Kapusta the important question – to which she answered yes.
‘I wanted to do the marriage proposal somewhere special,’ Mr Stentiford (30) said. ‘We’ve had loads and loads of walks down St Ouen.’
Mr Stentiford, a former Les Quennevais pupil, asked friend Andy Coutanche – known as the Jersey Sandman – to write the message in the sand.
‘I was very, very nervous,’ Mr Stentiford, a service adviser for Hyundai, said. ‘I was a bit worried about the weather. It was expected to rain.
‘I just wanted to do something nice. You plan ideas in the back of your head.
‘I could not have asked for it to go any better.
‘The weeks leading up to it I wasn’t myself. I thought she would have known.’
Mr Stentiford, who is the grandson of environmentalist Mike Stentiford, met his future fiancée on a training course and said it was ‘love at first sight’.
Although he moved to the UK to live with Miss Kapusta, a 25-year-old accountant, last December, he said it was important for him to propose in Jersey, as it was a place close to his heart.
‘Jersey is somewhere we see ourselves moving back to live,’ he said. ‘It is such a beautiful Island.’
The couple are still to set a date for their wedding but Mr Stentiford, who lives in Cwmbran, says he has set the bar high for future celebrations.
‘I’m a little bit worried about what she is expecting for our first-year anniversary,’ he joked.
It is not the first time that Mr Coutanche, who spent just over an hour creating the sand art, has inscribed a marriage proposal in the sand but he said it was even more special to do it for a friend.
‘It was very much fingers crossed for the weather but it was fine,’ he said. ‘It’s great, especially when it is your mate.’
