She Was Too Dazed to Respond to His Proposal!

17

The evening sky with the moon's reflection rippling on the water provided an idyllic backdrop for Steve to get on bended knee and pop the question. However, his girlfriend, Lori, wasn't prepared for him to ask!

She responded excitedly, "You're doing this now? You're doing this now?" 

Stunned, Lori didn't know that she'd blurted the words crowding her mind. She stared at the glowing diamond ring intensified by the lighted ring box. As Lori went to grab the ring, Steve pulled it back, saying, "Not until you answer me."

Rewind to 14 months earlier...

Fourteen months earlier, in mid-August of 2017, when Steve had first messaged Lori on CatholicMatch, she was evacuating with her family due to Hurricane Harvey. The single mom from Beaumont, Texas, with an annulled marriage, had been raising her daughter, Sydney, alone for 25 years. She joined CatholicMatch at the urging of her daughter. 

"When Sydney was engaged and in graduate school, she told me, 'Mom, now it's your turn. Let's sign you up on a dating site. Inside, I was kicking and screaming, but I finally agreed. I told her, 'Okay, I will do one Catholic dating site.'"

In January 2016, Lori's daughter helped her set up a CatholicMatch profile. She met a few men on the site, but none of them was a match. That is until Steve messaged Lori in August 2017, but she hadn't noticed it right away because of all the turmoil caused by the hurricane. When she did see his message, she felt intrigued. 

"I loved what he wrote about himself in his profile. What attracted me most was that I could see his integrity coming through," Lori says. "I also liked that his family, his children, and his church were important to him."

Since reliable Internet access was difficult to find because of the storm, Lori gave Steve her phone number. Anticipating his call, she hoped she would like the sound of Steve's voice. 

"For me, how a man's voice sounds is important!"

Steve had to eat his words!

In 2007, Steve became a widower. Grieving, he didn't have any desire to move on to another relationship for a long time. Eventually, his daughter and her roommate and one of the consecrated women at the Catholic school he works for encouraged him to sign up for CatholicMatch.

"I thought it was nuts to be honest with you," he says. "That's not how you meet people—I'm old school. That's never going to work."

Eager to see him begin dating again, all three women offered to write his profile; but Steve assured them, "I am a grown man. I can do it myself."

After finding Lori, he calls himself a "CatholicMatch convert." 

"I had to eat my words," he laughs.

Steve shares, "I think CatholicMatch is effective, not just because I found Lori, but because it's an efficient way to zero in on what you want versus walking into a bar and choosing someone to approach. The site made it easy to see if Lori was on the same page as me." 

He liked that her photos weren't all glamour shots.

Steve felt attracted to Lori's profile for two reasons: what she wrote led him to think they would be compatible, and she looked beautiful in her photos. He also liked that she had various shots showing her in different lights.

"Not all of her photographs were glamour shots. She had one photo showing her with a little bird perched on her finger, which gave me a glimpse into her personality."

And, she loved the sound of his voice.

On their first phone call, Lori instantly loved the sound of Steve's voice. Because they were in a long-distance relationship, the couple ended up having many long telephone conversations during the months—from August to October—before they met. Lori recalls those early weeks of their getting to know one another; Steve would phone her while she was cleaning her parent's home wrecked by Harvey. 

"He would call me when I was two-stepping and sweeping the house [Lori and Steve both love to country dance.]," she shares. "It didn't take me long to fall in love."

In October of 2017, the couple made a plan to meet face-to-face.

A first date in The Woodlands.

On their first date—which happened to land on the 100th anniversary of Fatima—the Texas couple met for Mass in The Woodlands, a picturesque suburb located 28 miles north of Houston. From there, they went to Hughes Landing, a high-end retail area with stores and restaurants overlooking a beautiful lake in The Woodlands.

"We sat next to the lake and talked and drank a bottle of wine," he says.

She adds, "All of the stores were closed down by the time our date came to an end."

They both felt their relationship held a lot of promise. For Lori, Steve offered everything she wanted in a man. 

"Once I met him and got to know him, I saw that he portrayed himself accurately. He was authentic, and he checked all of the boxes," Lori shares.

After their first date, the couple continued to have long phone conversations, and they would make the one-hour flight or drive the five-and-a-half hours between Lori's home in Beaumont and Steve's place in Dallas to see one another at least once a month.

An out-of-body experience.

On November 3rd, 2018, Steve and Lori returned to The Woodlands, where they had their first date. Hoping to keep his proposal plans a secret, Steve stealthily made plans refraining from telling anyone too soon about his intentions. At Hughes Landing, Steve took Lori to a steakhouse situated along the lake to experience one of his favorite steaks. As they left the restaurant, he said to Lori, "Why don't we walk down by the water?"

After strolling for a bit, he asked her to sit down on one of the benches.

"We were sitting on a bench which overlooked the water, and the moon was in the sky. I dropped to one knee, and I opened up the ring box. It was a little bit dark, and the ring box had a light, so when I opened it, the ring shone," he remembers.

Seeing what was happening, Lori said, "My gosh!" followed by a "You're doing this now? You're doing this now?!" 

"I had wondered how he would propose and discuss this with my daughter," she shares. "It never dawned on me that he was going to propose that weekend. In my head, I thought, 'Oh, you are doing this now.' So it popped out of my mouth twice."

Steve told Lori, "Are you going to answer me? Because my knee is getting wet from the water on the ground."

Then Lori reached for the ring. "I said, 'Not until you answer me.' She finally said 'yes,' but I had to goad it out of her," he laughs, recalling the proposal.

She adds, "It was an out-of-body experience for me."

There were tears in her father's eyes.

Six months later, in May of 2019, Lori and Steve joined their lives in Holy Matrimony at St. Edward Catholic Church in Spring, Texas. Lori's daughter was her matron of honor, and Steve's son was his best man. Lori's father walked her down the aisle.

"It was a blessing to have my dad walk me down the aisle. It was one of my favorite parts of the wedding," she says. "I hadn't anticipated him getting emotional."

Lori's dad wasn't the only one crying. As she walked to meet Steve, she could see that he, too, had tears in his eyes.

As Lori's dad gave her to Steve, he put his arms around both of them and told them, "I am so happy for you both; I am so happy you found each other."

And, a touching wedding dance video!

After the wedding, the couple had a beautiful reception located at the Spring Château, Spring, Texas. Captured on video is their first dance as a married couple. It's so incredibly romantic how well they dance together.

How are they doing?

Steve and Lori reside in the Dallas area. The happy couple share that their only real challenge in their marriage has been to pare down their two households into one. Lori says it's been challenging to let go of possessions that she has a sentimental attachment to, but she's happy to do what's necessary. She felt ready for a change, and she has embraced it. "I retired, got married, and moved in one fell swoop," she shares.

Lori wants female members—especially women over 50—to know CatholicMatch offers hope.

Find Your Forever.

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Catholic dating site in the world.

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