They met in college after being introduced by mutual friends. At first things were on a friendly level and Karl would always try to get close to Christine, sit next to her, etc. One night he slipped his arm around her and the two have been together ever since. Christine was Karl’s first girlfriend and this July will become his wife.
The story of their proposal as told by Christine:
It was cold. Really, really cold. We were staying at Karl’s mom’s house in Ponte Vedra around early January and we had no idea the weather would be so bad. But we got tired of being cooped in the house after a few days, so we decided to head to the beach. Since we didn’t have proper clothes for the weather, we ransacked Karl’s closet and ended up with a bunch of random, mismatched pieces: I wore his younger brother’s sneakers, his mom’s jacket, and a pair of sweatpants (whose owner is as yet unidentified); Karl wore an old pair of too-small cleats, gym shorts, his dad’s old jacket, and an old Christmas sweater underneath that. Just as we were leaving, his mom – huge smile on her face – asked us to bring her back some seashells. So we’re out on the completely deserted beach and it’s so windy that I have to pull the hood of my jacket up to keep my hair out of my eyes. It was miserable. But I followed Karl down the beach and waited while he’d kneel down to look at seashells. He’d hold one up and ask if it was okay before putting it in my pocket. Then he knelt down and said, “How about this?” while holding up a little wooden box. And then I said… “Wait…what?” Karl panicked and we just sort of stared at each other for a few seconds before I realized what was happening. He proposed with his mom’s engagement ring, a family heirloom, and pretty much took my stunned, smiling face as a “yes.”
