Hi Surfergirl
My DH was slow in the proposal area, it wasn't until i was about 29 and i laid out the timeline to him as i saw it, with him geting to select the start date. I did not want kids before wedding, he really wanted kids but wanted wedding two, but his thinking was yeah we'll get married someday. My percieved timeline went, get engaged, about a year later get married, 6 - 12 months to concieve first baby, 9 moths pregnancy, baby. DH relised that we were getting old and he had never though of the time it would all take (i think he hough that he would propose and within a year we would be married with a baby).
He proposed about 5 months later with a ring he had designed himself. The advantage i had was that he really wants kids and knew he wanted to marry me but just liked that everything was really cool as it was. the irony is that when we started trying i was the one that was not ready, i wanted kids but was not sure i wanted all the changes, cos our life is pretty cool. We got pregnant in our second month of no contraception (that for us consitiuted trying). For that i am consideing myself very lucky.
so basically i laid out whre i was at and how i was thinking and then left it to him, no pressure