We’re getting MARRIED!!!

On October 8, 2017, at St. Stephen Church (Louisville) as I sat waiting for church to start, this BALD and BEARDED man walked into the choir stand. He immediately checked off 2 out of 3 items on my list for those who know me. LOL! I quickly whipped out my phone and texted Ms. Stephanie and Ms. Judy, his fellow choir members. I knew they would see my messages as soon as church ended. For the rest of the service I had to be on my best behavior, and look extra cute! LOL! Ms. Stephanie replied first, saying “that’s Doraell”. Then came Ms. Judy, the MVP, giving me his name too. She took it a step further. She invited me to come to hear them sing that upcoming Wednesday. I tried to make it to church on Wednesday, October 11th, but work didn’t allow it. No worries, Ms. Judy was on the job. Like the MVP that she was. As some would say, she understood the assignment. LOL! She made a mad dash towards Doraell, catching him as he was headed out of the door. She asked if he was “looking for any new friends?”. She showed Doraell my Facebook profile page. Ms. Judy immediately called me and told me about the encounter. The little giddy school girl came out in me. LOL! Maybe that night, or some days later Doraell messaged me on Facebook. We exchanged a few messages. I remember our conversation about him finding pink to sing in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month. On Sunday, October 15, 2017, Doraell came up to me after church. He hit me with that “church hug”. LOL! I complimented him on his nice pink tie. A few more words were exchanged, and then he was off. Typical Doraell, I later found out. LOL! On Wednesday, October 17, 2017, I had a major, life-changing procedure. Unbeknownst to Doraell. I had not spoken to him since Sunday. On Friday, October 19th, Doraell calls me as I’m sitting in my hospital bed. I was able to fill him in on my current circumstances. I would say from that day forward we remained in communication. Early in our “friendship”, after almost two years of that fun, we discovered we also lived in the same apartment complex. Look at God making plans! LOL! We became good friends. We hung out quite a bit. He was playing hard to get. While normally that would not have been for me, I was very very interested. Plus, like I said before he was BALD and BEARDED. LOL! Remember that, I'm going somewhere with that. Finally…Easter weekend 2019 (weekend of April 20th) we traveled to Chicago with my Parentals. #ROADTRIP. That weekend we became official as “Dating”, or so I thought. Clearly, we still weren’t on the same page at that time. Nevertheless, we continued to hang out, talk on the phone, and further solidify our friendship. Doraell finally came to his senses (date unknown, because it gradually happened), and we were together officially this time. I was his “lady” to his friends. So that made me official! LOL! He had been my boo amongst my friends. He just didn’t know it at that time! LOL! Now, let's fast-forward to April 24, 2021…see the next story!!!

I had been trying to prepare myself for this moment for many, many, many years. LOL! However, no amount of preparation was enough for when it happened. Let’s go back a bit. Doraell had a COVID-19 40th birthday. So I wanted to surprise him with a mini 40th birthday redo. So for about a month or so I “thought” I was coordinating for some of his family to come to Louisville to surprise him for his birthday. Little did I know Doraell was working even earlier than me to plan the PERFECT PROPOSAL!!! Doraell’s family played along really well with my plan for his bday, even though they were already planning to be in town that same weekend. All of ‘em, just sneaky little jokas! LOL! Meanwhile, Doraell had cooked up a great scheme to throw me off his trail. His friends were getting married in July. So he told me they were having a Louisville wedding party gathering, and he was now in the wedding. All lies, I tell ya! LOL! He specifically asked me to wear red and white. So of course all week I’m running around looking for a cute outfit to wear. I even found some killer Red heels!!! But one question I had was why are we wearing white to someone else’s wedding event. #RUDE. But I followed along with my instructions. Finally, the day comes and I had one instruction…BE ON TIME! Anybody that knows me, knows I’m never on time. Y’all pray for me to be on time for our wedding. LOL! He leaves me to go “help set up the wedding party dinner”. All lies. LOL! I was making pretty good time getting myself dressed. Since we had his bday dinner after this event, I decided to put on a more comfortable black heel. But the killer red heels were in the car. I pull up downtown to park. I have to park far away. It was also raining. I got out of the car and dropped my clutch in a puddle. I’m fighting with my umbrella, and face shield, and trying to pay for my parking meter. Talk about too much going on right now. I finally make it to the venue. I see Stephon and Sharnell (now Mr. and Mrs. Stephens). They grab my clutch, face shield, and umbrella to “take a picture”. All a big distraction. When the picture is over, they wouldn’t let me grab my stuff, and I’m directed to go ahead and walk into the room. Now it’s time to grab your tissues. I walked around the partition, took a few steps in and my head dropped and the tears flowed. There my King was, standing at the end of the runway, lined with candles and roses waiting for me. There was a huge sign behind him that read “Marry Me?”. I saw no one in the room, but Mr. Doraell Gurley. I made my way toward him. I stopped for a moment because it hit me. “I don’t have on my RED heels!!!”. If you were there, then you know. LOL! Once I made it up the runway to Doraell I gave him the biggest tear-filled hug. He stood there with a gorgeous bouquet of red roses that he presented to me. Then, he had something important to say. Buuutttt…before he could I could finally start seeing the faces of all of our family and friends that were in the room. Up until that point, I saw no one else but the love of my life. So of course I was super surprised when I saw all of his family, plus some that I had been inviting into town for his surprise birthday dinner. They got me good! LOL! Finally, I was ready! Doraell Thomas Gurley got on one knee and asked me, Tiffany Danielle Williams, to marry him. We will NEVER forget that day. It was truly amazing, magical, unforgettable, loving, God-ordained, and so much more. We laughed, cried, and took lots of pictures to capture that moment. We have been on cloud 9 ever since!!!