the Proposal

So for those of you who haven’t seen the announcement on facebook or received a text message or my mom’s mass email … Katie Holloman, my best friend, girlfriend of one year (come June 20), and lifelong friend since 10 years old, agreed to marry me last night.

Yeah, I’m pretty excited.

I’ve been getting a lot of requests for the play-by-play of the evening, so here it is.

First, a little background. Katie and I went ring-seeking a few weeks ago and I got totally freaked out. I’m in there, learning about the four C’s (which I am now thoroughly familiar with as cut, clarity, color and carats) and the ring lady pulls out a pretty nice-looking ring. From what I could tell, anyway. At that point, I was as clueless as … okay, no good metaphors right now, so just leave at “clueless.”

“How much is that one?” I asked.

“This one is … sixty-seven fifty,” she replied.

Somehow I just knew she didn’t mean $67.50.

After another ten minutes in there, I was ready to get one of those rings from those little kiosks in the mall or, even better, a $20 ring from Claire’s right across the walkway. Price, fanciness, it’s all overrated, I thought.

Okay, not really, and after about 24 hours, I got done feeling like I needed to barf and moved on.

A week or so later, I drove by Friedman’s Jewelers in Wilson, knowing they were having a going-out-of-business sale, with everything marked 60-80% off.

“Don’t buy anything without calling me first,” my dad had said. Didn’t want me getting ripped off and such

Well, they were closed.

Dangit.

On the way back to the apartment, I decided to drop by Kay Jewelers. You know, just look around, get a feel for what I might want to get.

I spent a solid hour in there, talking with the two ladies, who were pretty freakin’ nice. And long story short, I walked out of there with a ring, without paying a dime.

And I didn’t steal it.

Kay offers a great payment plan, 12 months same as cash. Perfect for me.

And I didn’t call my dad. Sorry Dad. Just did it.

So, that leads up to the night. A week and a day later.

Well, back up a couple days from that. I still had to talk to her parents. Most particularly, her dad. Albert.

Not gonna lie, it was about the hardest thing I had to do in the whole process. Not even sure why, to be honest. Just didn’t know how to lead into it.

It took me four innings of the UNC-Coastal Carolina NCAA Super Regional Game 2, but I finally spit it out. And of course, he was fine with it. I think the timing caught him a little off guard.

“So I was thinking Tuesday,” I said.

“Well that’s soon!” replied Mr. Holloman.

Yep.

Tuesday was her 21st birthday. I sent her flowers at work — it was her second day of work, nobody knew anything about her, it needed to be a good day for her — bought her the Alicia Keys CD, a picture frame I knew she’d like, a gave her a controller for the Wii since she (or I, depending on who you ask) left one of hers in Georgia.

My mom called me at work to make sure I was “okay.”

“Seriously?” I replied. “This is why you called me?”

“Well, are you?”

“Are YOU?”

All the ladies at work oohed and ahhed over the ring, which they demanded to see prior to my departure for Greenville. Many good lucks’ were wished. I’m pretty sure I was the only one not freaking out about it.

And I honestly wasn’t. Excited, but hardly nervous or anxious. Just ready.

So I arrive in Greenville around 6 p.m. after work, get my mom to wrap a poem I wrote just for the occasion, then headed down to the Holloman household.

While Katie was upstairs changing for dinner, I talked with her mom in the living room.

“So, did Albert tell you about our little conversation the other day?” I asked.

“I think so … maybe? What conversation?”

“Oh, you would remember this conversation.”

So I told her, she did a great job of minimizing her freakout, gave me a hug, then ran outside to fuss at Mr. Holloman and make sure I didn’t see her cry. I peeked out the window to make sure he would smile about it. He did.

Full steam ahead.

Katie gets downstairs and can’t decide where to eat — Rucker Johns? Saparri? Beef Barn? — so she opens her presents while deciding. Main good one is, of course, my Alicia Keys CD. Her parents’ Mario Kart for the Wii wasn’t too shabby, either.

She hadn’t decided where to eat yet, so we marveled at how Sam’s Club bonked the cake order her mom put in. Instead of a family-sized round cake, she was greeted with a party-sized square cake.

Nice work, Sam.

Right then, I decided I wanted to propose prior to eating the birthday cake, which I knew would be after dinner and, if we ate a lot, long enough after dinner to give me a solid window of time there to make it natural.

Okay, so I didn’t think that last half of the sentence through, but it sounds good when I say this next part.

When Katie still hadn’t decided, she asked me for the fortieth time, and I put my foot down on Saparri.

Two hours later, we were all about to explode. The special was chicken, steak and shrimp for like, 19 bucks. Me and Albert ordered that individually while Katie and her mom split it. Anna, Katie’s older sister, ordered like, six different things of sushi, so she was set, too.

Katie and I went upstairs to play Mario Kart, which we did for a solid hour or so. The game was a blast, not gonna lie. Almost made me wish I didn’t have to waste time doing the whole proposal and post-proposal celebration thing.

Just kidding.

We finally took a break around 9:25 p.m. for her to use the bathroom. I immediately seized the opportunity, sprinting out to my car and grabbing the wrapped poem out of my bag and momentarily panicking when I couldn’t find the ring.

It was underneath a flip-flop in the bag.

I dashed back inside, hurriedly whispering to Anna and Mrs. Holloman to send Katie outside when she came out. I set up a dual-person lounge chair by the pool and laid down, acting — and actually feeling — pretty nonchalant about the whole ordeal.

See, the significance of the pool is pretty much, well, significant. It’s where we hung out basically every day for a decade of summers. It’s where we first kissed, on June 20, 2007 … at about 3:40 p.m., I believe … and first decided to officially date about thirty seconds later. Much sentimentality there.

Hence the afore-mentioned significance.

Oh, and about that nonchalance? It definitely disappeared the moment I heard the door squeak open and saw her walk towards me. I covered it well, though.

“Got you one more thing for your birthday,” I said as she laid down next to me, handing her the poem.

“Whyyy?” she asked. “You do too much.”

You have no idea, I thought to myself. Jokingly, of course.

She opened it and immediately awww’d and said, “You’re so sweet!”

Yeah, you have no idea.

So she starts reading the poem and I swear, it took her thirty minutes. It wasn’t a long poem. Here, I’ll even post it right here for you.

June 10, 2008

At ten or eleven or maybe twelve, I’m unsure,
We met each other entirely young and entirely pure.
Our lives brought us together some years and took us away some others,
Yet have now, by God’s hands, distinctively merged into each other.

This time last year we were little more than friends living near,
Wondering why everyone was so weird about inviting me to a birthday dinner.
Now a year later, I couldn’t imagine a life without my Katie Leigh,
For a life apart is a life I believe neither of us wish to see.

The time we’ve had together these past 355 days has been life-molding,
As we’ve braved ourselves and overcome our pasts simply by each other holding.
It’s truly a blessing to have been with you and taken part in such freedom-seeking,
As together we’ve grown into people truly desiring God find us pleasing.

We’ve fought numerous doubts and battled multiple fears.
We’ve conquered every struggle to turn past months into future years.
It’s become undeniably evident that we’re supposed to be together,
So please honor me by accepting this ring as my promise of forever.

I’m sure my peering over her shoulder to try to figure out where she was didn’t ruin the romance at all.

She finishes reading the poem and looks at me, tears and confusion simultaneously springing to eyes that wordlessly cried, “What?”

I slid off the chair, dropped to the knee, pulled out and popped open the box and presented her a sparkling, 1/3 carat, princess-cut (square, guys), completely colorless diamond adorned on a white gold ring. (Pictures coming soon.)

“Will you marry me?” I asked.

“Of course,” she replied.

I was grateful for her prompt response.

So I put the ring on and we hugged and kissed and did the repeating “I love you” for about five minutes, then finally went inside to get the celebration started.

Kinda.

She planted herself in the hallway leading to the kitchen, which led to the living room, which is where her mom, dad, and sister were watching Game 3 of the NBA Finals.

Judging by her dad’s reactions, the Lakers were winning.

“What?” I asked.

“I don’t wanna go in there!” she whined. I mean, um, gracefully requested.

She seriously was in too much shock to move much.

“You want to go down to my house first?” I asked.

“Yeah … no … I don’t know … maybe?” she replied. “No wait, heck no! There’s way more people down there!”

So I just picked her and, quite literally, carried her into the living room, announcing, “We just got engaged!”

Her mom and sister immediately smothered us in hugs and freakout-style squealings … okay, they really weren’t that bad … while her dad remained reclined in the recliner, remarkably, well, nonchalant.

Nonchalant is a great word.

I wasn’t sure whether to take that as encouraging or discouraging.

He assured me he was happy. I wasn’t too sure.

Then we went down to my house, where my family did the whooping hollering oohing and ahhing thing. My took pictures. Sisters gave hugs. Brothers high-fived. Glorious.

Anna texted me, saying that whoever wanted to could come down for celebratory cake and ice cream. My plan worked perfectly.

So down to the Holloman house the Sneed family trekked, descending upon the home in a frenzy of exuberance. Mom took more pictures. We partied. I beat Kramer in pool. Heidi played Katie in Mario Kart.

And I found out that Mr. Holloman cried when he read the poem after I left.

Score.

And so that, my friends, is a fairly detailed play-by-play of my proposal.

Our wedding date is set, tentatively, for July 11, 2009. Not sure on a location yet. We’re thinking the beach near Wilmington or somewhere in Greenville, or nearby. Need to do some Googling. If you have any suggestions, throw them in the comments.

It’ll be a small wedding, so don’t be offended if you don’t get an invite. We’re thinking 100 or so, maybe 125, and that includes about 75 family members between the two of us.

More info on that to come later.

We’re thinking a honeymoon in Cancun, though that’s as far from being set in stone as penguins are likely to hop in a tanning bed.

Which is to say, it’s not set in stone.

So that’s basically it. Little play-by-play action on the engagement action.

So for the rest of you guys out there … and sexually confused girls … sorry, but I was just promised the heart of and a lifetime with the greatest girl alive. Guess you all have to settle for second-best.

I kid, but she really is phenomenal. I’ve had relationships and confusions and various thoughts on various girls in the past who I thought could possibly be something good for me, though with Katie, there has never been any question except ‘How far could this go?’

Well, now we all know.

I’m a blessed man.