LDS Dating: A Study In Complicatedness

I didn't grow up in the Mormon Church -- I married into it. Since my own kids started dating a few years back (dating doesn't start until the kids turn 16), I've found that there seem to be a lot of expectations in our culture that, had they existed for my group of friends when I was growing up, would have probably made dating just too complicated to consider.

I've found that, when asking someone to a dance, it's expected that simply preparing the invitation will require several hours to plan and put together. Here's a web site that gives LDS daters some ideas of what they can do. For example, my oldest son just asked a girl from our Ward to the school's Homecoming Dance. He got a cooler and some flowers, typed up an invitation that started "Now that the ice has been broken...", laminated the paper and rolled it up, filled the cooler with water, and froze it into a block of ice with the paper and flowers inside. The answer came in the form of a 100 piece puzzle with the answer (basically, "Yes", in this case) on the back. Both were delivered using the time-honored "doorbell ditch" method. (As the "doorbell ditch" driver, I had points taken off for putting the mini-van in "Park" while waiting for my son to run back to the car after ringing the doorbell.)

Here's my question for those of you with dating kids or recent dating experience yourself: Is this just an LDS thing, or are other people doing it? If so, how long has it been going on? Had this requirement started back in the early 80s, would it have been the end of human existence on earth?