Plenty of us have a love affair with tacos and margaritas. But have you ever heard of them leading to a soulmate?
Junior Media Buyer Holly Brazeal met her now-fiancé, Jonathan Logan, through a pair of mutual friends. It wasn’t long before the two found themselves intertwined in the same Tuesday Taco Mama group. Happy hour led to happy times, and Holly and Jonathan began dating a few months later in October of 2018.
“We knew very quickly that we had something special that we could see lasting,” Holly said. “I wouldn’t go as far as to say ‘love at first sight,’ but you can sense when a connection has real potential.”
Though the couple had never met until the summer of 2018, they were practically destined to. Both came from Birmingham families, and both went to Briarwood High School, graduating only two years apart. Even with Briarwood being a smaller school, the two didn’t cross paths until last year.
As time wore on, Holly and Jonathan spent a lot of time together and with each other’s families. By the following spring, they had begun talks of marriage.
“We both wanted to get married, but I had no clue when it would actually happen,” Holly said. “Jonathan is such a procrastinator, I was betting on later rather than sooner!”
When it came time for Holly’s annual family beach trip, she was sure no proposals were in the works. The family was celebrating a baby shower, Father’s Day, and several birthdays all in one trip. It seemed there wasn’t room for anything else.
On their last day at the beach, the entire group descended to the shore to take the annual family photo. Holly and two of her closest cousins always went out a little early to take photos with one another. This time, Jonathan accompanied them, camera bag in hand.
Following the cousin photos, Holly and Jonathan took a few with just themselves. After the last shutter click, Holly’s cousins began to walk off, and the photographer started to back away.
Holly wondered what on earth was going on.
Jonathan turned to face Holly, hand still gripping the oversized camera bag. He reached in and pulled a small, black square out of its inner pocket. Setting down the bag, he knelt, opening the box to reveal a radiant diamond ring.
As Jonathan proposed, and Holly jubilantly accepted, her family rushed to the shore to congratulate the couple on their new engagement.
“All twenty of my family members on the trip had known,” Holly recounted. “Somehow, they managed to keep the secret for an entire week. Looking back, there were some weird things that happened, but nothing that made me expect Jonathan was planning to propose.”
One of these strange occurrences was her mother’s trip to the store for “extra cheese” on the penultimate day of the trip. In truth, she was going to blow up the balloons for Holly’s surprise engagement reception.
The family celebrated the happy news with balloons, champagne, and themed décor. It was an enchanting end to what was already Holly’s favorite family tradition.
Holly and Jonathan will wed April 4, 2020, at Briarwood Church followed by a reception at Vestavia Country Club. They will then depart for their honeymoon at a private resort in Cancun, the same resort where SAM team members Grace Hatcher and Hayley Grisham honeymooned.
