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 Images (from left): courtesy of couple; Marni Pictures; Shannon Michele Photography
October 5, 2012
 Good News Galore!
Get giddy over these sweet proposals and host of new nuptials
Written
By Daisy Bainum & Lizzie Gheorghita
Being newly engaged brings on the ultimate game of show and tell: first, show the sparkle on your ring finger, then, tell the story of how it happened. This year, Lowcountry gentlemen have been asking their lady loves to be their brides-to-be right and left. Read on for three such stories that have come our way of late. And to see who’s tied the knot in the past few months, click here, where we’ve uploaded more than 30 new wedding announcements.
Mapping a New Life
Melissa Hurd and William Evans
Engaged May 19, 2012
After graduating from college in 2010 Pennsylvania native Melissa Hurd decided it was time for a change of scenery. Following her parents’ suggestion, she let fate lead the way, closed her eyes, and pointed to a map, aiming for anywhere in the Southeast. Her finger landed on Charleston and she arrived in Holy City just two days later. After moving in, Melissa visited her new apartment’s pool, but found the gate locked. She looked around and noticed that then-stranger William had made it in. In his “sweet Southern drawl,” Melissa says, William told her he had jumped the fence, and she followed suit. From there, Melissa, a self-described “adventure-seeking, country-at-heart teacher from the North” and William, whom she describes as “a rule-breaking, Mount Dew-drinking engineer from Summerville,” became fast friends. The friends became roommates, who then became a couple. When William moved to Beaufort for a job promotion, Melissa visited, she thought, for her birthday celebration. After a morning on the beach, a private boat ride, and dinner at a dockside restaurant, William took Melissa to the historic Old Sheldon Church Ruins, dropped to one knee, and proposed. “I jumped for joy!” Melissa says. “We couldn’t be happier.” The couple, who live in Charleston, will wed in June 2013.
High School Sweethearts
Megan Stoffel and Brandon Stokes
November 23, 2011
Megan Stoffel and Brandon Stokes first bumped into each other in 2001 on their middle school bus. For years, Megan admired Brandon from afar, even doodling hearts with his initials in her notebooks at one point. In high school, the pair met and became sweethearts. When both went to separate colleges, they dated off-and-on. Then, home for Thanksgiving break in 2011, (he in Beaufort, she in Ridgeland) Brandon ask her on a date just like old times back in high school, says Megan. He took her to the waterfront to watch the sunset where they talked about life—jobs, families, and growing old together, Megan says, until the mood shifted. “Gone was my composed boyfriend,” Megan recalls. “His voice became quivery and his eyes welled up in tears.” Moments later, Brandon was down on one knee, asking for her to marry him. Megan says she was speechless, floored, in fact, “with happiest-girl-in-the-world emotions.” After asking three times, Brandon heard the “Yes!” he was hoping for. The couple then joined their families, who had been hiding out at a nearby park. The group celebration was the icing on the cake, says Megan. The two, now Charleston residents, will wed on April 27, 2013 at St. Mary of the Annunciation.
This One’s for You
Kayce Hughes and Clay Halstead
December 16, 2011
Kayce and Clay met when her former suitemate began dating his best friend. (Follow that?) It took several such run-ins, Kayce says, before the two were able to break from their pack of pals and squeeze in a private conversation. That initial tete-a-tete quickly turned into a long-distance relationship, with Kayce living in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Clay, in Columbia, South Carolina, until their mutual desire to live in Charleston soon closed the gap. “It took no hesitation, only timing, to get us both here,” Kayce explains. One afternoon close last December, the newly minted Lowcountry residents headed to “Paint Your Pet” night at Mount Pleasant’s Wine and Design. Two portraits of their pup later, Clay suggested they head home immediately to wrap Christmas gifts before an upcoming trip to see his family. “He seemed awfully ready to get home,” recalls Kayce, who soon learned why. As she was taping up a present for Clay’s sister, he called out from the other room, “Will you do one more?” When Kayce looked up, she found Clay holding a ring box, to which she asked, “Is that for your sister?” Thankfully it was for Kayce. The couple’s ceremony is planned for December 8, 2012.
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