Proposals have long clustered around a specific window on the calendar, but a run of high-profile summer engagements is testing how firm that window really is. Roughly 47% of U.S. couples get engaged between November and February, the traditional “engagement season,” according to The Knot’s 2025 Real Weddings Study. This year, several couples proposed well outside that stretch, including NFL quarterback Justin Herbert and singer Madison Beer, who announced their own engagement on Instagram on July 28, 2026.
Key Points
- 47% of proposals in the U.S. happen between November and February, per The Knot’s annual Real Weddings Study.
- December remains the single most popular proposal month nationally.
- Justin Herbert and Madison Beer confirmed their engagement via a joint Instagram post on July 28, 2026, with Beer captioning the announcement “meet my fiancé.”
- Their proposal came after roughly a year of dating, well outside the traditional winter engagement window.
The winter clustering has a logical basis. The holidays put couples in front of family, travel plans create natural moments for a proposal trip, and the symbolism of starting a new year engaged has an obvious appeal. December in particular benefits from all of that at once, which is why it consistently ranks as the single most popular proposal month in The Knot’s yearly data.
Herbert and Beer’s announcement stood out partly because of timing and partly because of how it was shared: directly from the couple, with no red-carpet reveal or third-party report breaking the news first. Beer posted the engagement herself, confirming the relationship status in her own words rather than through a representative or outside outlet.
That kind of summer proposal isn’t unheard of, but it does run against the seasonal grain the data shows. With 53% of proposals happening across the other ten months of the year, a July engagement isn’t statistically rare on its own — what makes this year’s run of off-season, high-visibility engagements notable is simply how many landed outside the winter window in close succession, in a year when the “engagement season” concept has gotten more attention than usual.
None of this suggests winter’s grip on proposal timing is loosening in any measurable way — the November-to-February window still accounts for nearly half of all engagements nationally, and December’s dominance isn’t going anywhere. But for couples deciding when to pop the question, this year’s crop of summer proposals is a reminder that “engagement season” describes a popular pattern, not a rule. Nearly half of proposals happen off-schedule every single year; some of them just happen to involve a quarterback and a pop star.
