How we met

She was the most gorgeous girl I had ever seen. That’s *ever* much less on Instagram/social media. But that is where she popped up. It was curious that I had never seen her before being that we were both from Memphis and had several mutual friends, but our paths had never crossed. After a quick text to a friend confirmed that she was single, it took me a day to make up my mind to shoot her a message.

I asked her to coffee. A day later (and after she reached out to a different mutual friend of ours to vet this unknown suiter), she said yes. We were off.

The dates

Our first date got switched from City and State (coffee shop) to Wiseacre (brewery) since the former was closed. She was indeed as beautiful as her profile pic. But what was surprising was the conversation. The content alone was great—lots of shared interests—but it was the flow and ease in talking that made it feel like there could be something. Thirty minutes in, she asked me what I enjoyed in my free time. “Reading, being active, and spending time with loved ones” was my response. She started to grin as I put the question back to her. “The same” she replied with a smile.

The second date started as a walk by the water on Harbor Town (constantly *bumping into each other*) but morphed into dinner at Cocozza and then graduated onto a second, even longer, walk in Harbor Town…on a work night.

We both felt the ease in communication. No topic was off limits.

The next two and a half months was pure bliss. As one work colleague said of me, “William quit walking around the office…he was floating.” We filled a lot in a short period. Dinners and visits with various friends and family members, interrupted by brief trips to Knoxville (Go Vols, we beat Bama) and Washington D.C. And less than two months in, I was looking for a ring. Maci made it clear that she did not want to be a direct participant in the selection but advised consulting her best friends Andrea and Rachel could prove helpful. It was.

The proposal

I finally got the ring and had a solo breakfast with Maci’s parents. Had I had it a month earlier, I would have asked her then. As it was, December 7th would be the day. She could tell it was happening. The night before she texted both Rachel and Andrea to tell them that everything in her told her it was going to be the following day.

We ran in the St. Jude 5k that morning and then I anxiously waited for evening to arrive. We went to Wiseacre for only our second time **no coincidence** with Rachel and her husband TJ. And then, as if on a whim, I suggested we go to Cocozza for dinner. Dinner, complements of my brother, was wonderful. We then went for a walk in the fridged December air in Harbor Town.

I wanted to mimic our first two outings as closely as I could, to include an after dinner walk. But this time it was 40 degrees and I knew I couldn’t get my lovely date as far as I did the first go round. I wanted to take her to a bench where we sat on our second date, but it was too far away, and the truth was, I didn’t exactly know how to get to it. So, I settled for the first park we came to in Harbor Town. It had a tree with stunning Christmas lights, and a backless bench.

We both noted that the bench looked ill-designed. But I asked her if she wanted to sit, and she kindly obliged. It was truly less than optimal not having a back, but sometimes when the moment presents itself, you go with what you got. That’s also when my desire for surprise took a somewhat surprising turn…at least for Maci.

I had planned this next part, much like the whole of the night, weeks in advance. But this part, unlike the others, I had gotten input on, because I knew it was riskier. It was a somewhat unorthodox direction to go. “Sweetie, I know you’d like for me to propose…but I just don’t have a ring…but I did find this silicone ring in the men’s bathroom at work.” Now I know it sounds ill-advised at the outset (Maci would argue there is no world where it would be well-advised) but I thought I needed a good misdirection to then hit her with the real thing. Her response: “that’s from where!? Why?? Why did you pick it up? If you needed or wanted to get me a silicone band, a million times yes, but you just said you found that in a bathroom?” Fair. I’ll grant you it wasn’t hygienic (of course it wasn’t true either, I bought it days before).

With that, I was struggling. I wanted to just pop the question but now she was confused and repulsed all at once. There was no smooth transition out. I leaned in for a kiss. I knew that might get her to close her eyes, so I could dig around in my jacket for the real ring. But I couldn’t find the ring because I closed my eyes too (It would have been unfair to keep mine open). My hand finally found the box. Whew. I was one step closer. One moment away. I didn’t waste any more time on the ill-designed backless excuse for outdoor furniture. It was down to one knee.

The ask.

“Maci Loren DeLuca, will you marry me?” It was out there. The question. The whole sha-bang.

The answer. “Are you actually asking me?” What. Are you kidding me? “Yes, baby this is a real diamond ring, of course I’m asking you”

I mean come on. That’s her response??

The real answer.

“Yes, yes, yes. A million times yes”

In her defense. The box was a little different than one might expect and maybe I had momentarily lost her trust with the silicone shenanigan. But we got things straight, quickly.

The party

I still couldn’t quite lean into the moment. I knew there were more surprises yet ahead. We went back to Cocozza for a celebratory drink. Halfway through the drinks, I told her we needed to leave because Rachel and TJ were meeting us at my house. This was a half-truth. They were meeting us at my house. But so were about 6 other of her closest friends, a couple of mine, as well as my siblings. Right at 8:12pm we got to my house. As we came through my back door, she could see gold streamers and thought something was up. She thought maybe Rachel had done a little decorating for a quaint special celebration. She was mistaken.

My house has three rooms connected. Entering the first allows you to see to the back of the third. As we turned the corner into the first room, Maci saw her friends in the third room beaming with joyful anticipation. Those stalwarts who had comforted and carried and grieved at various times. What came next was special. Words here would fail to describe the engagement party. Suffice to say there were waterworks. And hugs. And then champagne. And smiles. And more hugs.

We look forward to more of the same on June 20.