The day John intended to propose to Alina, he felt like he was on a first date and that everything was conspiring against his best-laid plans. His date with Alina began with Adoration, where he intended to propose. However, there were too many people around.
“I thought, ‘Now I am going to have to wing it,’” he recalls.
John’s second opportunity was to propose at the restaurant, but darn that Zales box was huge! It was a hot June day, and he was racking his brain to figure out where to hide the ring box.
I kept offering to hold Alina's purse so I could slip the box in there, but she kept saying, ‘No,’” he recalls. “I know it’s cliché, but I really wanted to propose with the ring in the box."
“I’ll have to wing it again,” he thought. He took the ring out of the box and put it in his pocket.
“I kept my hand in my pocket to make sure the ring was still there,” he says.
The waiter almost blew the surprise!
All the plan pivots were freaking John out. Then, to make matters worse, when John made the reservation, he had told them it was for an engagement celebration. Consequently, their waiter thought the couple was celebrating their engagement, so he kept directing hints at John.
Knowing full well, the waiter asked John, “So what's the occasion?”
With Alina eyeing John with suspicion, he answered, “We're just having a date.”
The waiter stared at John and said, “Are you sure?”
“In my mind, I'm like, ‘Dude, get out of here,’” John recalls.
All the while, Alina is at every turn thinking, “Is this it? Is he going to propose now?”
“I'm looking at him. I'm like, ‘Is this it?’” she recalls. “I was just dissecting all of it.”
John knew that Alina knew, but wanting the engagement to come as a surprise, he waited until the bitter end to ask her.
“I was a little sad because I thought, ‘Oh, he’s not going to ask me to marry him,’” Alina recalls.
At the end of their meal, John pretended like he was about to ask the waiter for the check to throw Alina off.
“Instead, I started talking to her—loving her with my words. That's when I reached into my pocket,” he remembers.
“It was definitely a surprise when John proposed,” she shares. “Even though I was expecting it earlier on. At that moment, I did not expect it.”
Choosing patience over discouragement...
It was a long road before John met Alina on CatholicMatch. He had spent four years discerning with the Franciscan Friars. After discerning out of the order, he spent another four years on and off CatholicMatch.
Alina had also discerned for four years. She prayed and considered entering religious life for three years and then spent one year with the Discalced Carmelites, a cloistered order. She had been a CatholicMatch member for less than a year and had just ended a dating fast when she saw John’s profile and “hearted” it.
One of the first reasons the two hit it off was that they felt a connection since they had both joined a religious order.
“It was really big plus because right away, we had something in common,” John says. “She intrigued me from the beginning."
She flew to New York...
In the summer of 2022, shortly after messaging on CatholicMatch, they had their first video chat. John and Alina are both talkative people, so their conversation flowed. Within two months, they both wanted to meet in person. To John’s surprise and delight, Alina volunteered to fly to New York.
“That's never happened before. I'd always been the one to travel,” he shares.
Alina, from Dallas, Texas, adds, “I was like, ‘I'm just going to buy a plane ticket and go out there just to see how it goes.’”
When John met Alina at the airport, his first thought was, “Gosh, she’s really pretty.”
Alina noticed that, unlike on the phone, John was being quiet, and he seemed a lot more shy. His behavior didn’t turn her off, but she did wonder why he was being reserved.
John says he was only feeling nervous. He hadn’t dated in a while, so that made him feel awkward. Even so, the weekend flew by, and the two enjoyed seeing New York sites and the Phantom of the Opera together.
Six weeks later, John flew to Dallas to see Alina. They continued to hit it off, and John was falling for her. Alina’s parents liked him, so that helped smooth the way.
“I remember that my mom said John had a cute nose,” Alina laughs. “They loved him.”
Pulling up roots...
John was tired of New York’s fast pace and high prices, so within a year of dating, he moved to the Dallas area to be near Alina. His parents weren’t crazy about the move, but they came to terms with it.
“His mom was like, ‘Whose this person that’s taking my child?’” Alina recalls, adding, “She loves me now.”
The couple dated another six months before John popped the question at the restaurant. They had a ten-month-long engagement, and then, in April 2024, John and Alina said their marital vows at St. Gabriel Catholic Church in McKinney, TX. Nine months later, God blessed them with a honeymoon baby—a little girl.
