How We Met
Technically, I first “discovered” Clarissa on Tinder in 2016. By happenstance, she had a picture with another girl I knew so not only did I swipe right but I also text the girl in the picture and said to “tell your friend who I see on Tinder that I’m interested.” Well…she didn’t swipe back right for me. :(
But “if at first, you don’t succeed”. By happenstance, I went to the mall on my birthday and walked past the Apple store (where she works) and saw this beautiful girl in front of the store helping a customer. Coincidentally, this is also where the girl who was in Clarissa’s picture worked so I text her and said “Whoever that girl is in the front of the store working, tell her I’m interested.” Hey, I was a bachelor, what’d you expect. It took me a few minutes of continuing to browse the store until I realized “Wait a minute, that’s the girl from Tinder!” So I text my friend again wondering “That’s the girl from Tinder! How come she didn’t swipe right? Man stop playing and tell her I want to take her out!”
Well, either the persistence was admirable or Clarissa got tired of being bombarded with “he really wants to take you out texts” so she finally agreed to reach out to me and eventually on a date.
We had dinner on a Friday night (the same day Apple launched one of their latest iPhones so needless to say Clarissa was tired and hungry!) and though I truthfully was not going into this whole ordeal thinking “she’s gonna be the one,” I left the date that night knowing she would be. And the rest is history.
How They Asked
The pandemic has been hard on a lot of us. So why not end the rough year that was 2020 with some good? When I saw the news in October that AMC Theaters was renting out theaters this Fall/Winter to encourage people back to the movies, I instantly had an idea: “Maybe I can rent out a theater and they can play a movie I made! And not just any movie…a movie where I propose to the love of my life!”
Well, thanks to the great people at AMC Theaters and AMC Clearview Palace in Metairie, Louisiana, my dream was able to come true and they offered me a theater for December 19, 2020. The only thing left to do was to just film the movie. Hmm…writing, filming, producing, and editing a movie with less than a month of time left till the target date should be a piece of cake right? Especially having no experience with any of this. Let’s just say it was “fun” in a variety of ways.
But thanks to the help of my family and friends, along with her family, we made it happen (we’re not professionals, but I’d say we made “movie magic”).
There’s only one movie we could have done that is befitting to end this year. One movie that is sure to be the next holiday classic: The Proposal: 2020 Style!
Of course, my girlfriend had no idea for months that we were planning this. On December 19, 2020 she thought we were going to see an exclusive screening of Wonder Woman (which I still do not know if she’s disappointed we didn’t get to see it or not lol). AMC Clearview made a trailer reel of three legitimate trailers to keep the charade up and then as I left to “use the restroom”, they played my special trailer.
I hate to spoil a great movie but spoiler alert: she said yes! Enjoy the film! We tried to get her reaction to the whole movie but we didn’t take into account she might recline her seat (hey, I said we’re not professionals). D’oh! Still, you can see some of her reaction halfway through the “trailer” and her reaction when she realizes her father and stepmom along with their kids flew all the way from New Mexico to be there to share the special moment.
Thank you again to AMC Theaters for going above and beyond to make this possible. They even let us hang a movie poster up to go with all the other upcoming movies. Sucks for the passing customers who are looking forward to seeing ‘The Proposal: 2020 Style’ though.