How They Met
It all started in the Memorial Student Center at Prairie View A&M University in April of 2006. Kenneth and Natasha had known of each other, but never officially met. One day, as Natasha was leaving the Memorial Student Center, she saw Kenneth at Chick-Fil-A and thought to herself, “Surely this man has noticed me. I am determined that he will speak to me today”. So she walked up to him and scolded “Just so you know...when you see me you should always speak to me.”
Flabbergasted, Kenneth apologized for being so dense and proceeded to work his worldly renowned charm and asked Natasha for her phone number. Naturally, she obliged, and after a few blissful phone conversations, they had their first date at Starbucks. And the rest as they say “is history.”
The Proposal
For Kenneth's 28th birthday and their three year anniversary, the couple decided to take a trip to Las Vegas to celebrate the two joyous occasions. The first day the couple spent most of their time gambling, shopping, sight-seeing and topped the night off with a nice birthday dinner at the Stratosphere. The second night was to be a tad more eventful.
Having an alternate agenda in mind, Kenneth had reserved a “surprise” anniversary dinner at The Eiffel Tower restaurant. He mentioned to Natasha only that they had reservations to celebrate at 7:00 and that it was imperative that they are on time.
They arrived promptly at 6:45 p.m. and were greeted by the hostess who informed them that their table “would be ready in just a few moments.” A few moments passed, and the couple had yet to be seated. The hostess appeared again and told Natasha that unfortunately their table was not ready, and it would be a bit of a wait. The hostess offered the couple two “complimentary” tickets to view the top of the Eiffel Tower while they waited for their table. At that point Natasha was quite frustrated as she could not understand how her table was not ready as promised when “the reservations were made days in advance.” After what seemed like an eternity of persuasion and interrogation, Natasha finally agreed to take the “complimentary” tickets to view the top of the Eiffel Tower.
The couple then made their way through the corridor and up the stairs to be expedited to the front of the long line of waiting patrons. They were escorted into an elevator that took them 700 feet above the ground to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Once they arrived at the top Kenneth thought to himself, “Okay, this is it.” Unfortunately, Kenneth's anticipation couldn't have been further from reality.
Overcome by the extreme height, freezing wind and noticeable rocking sway of The Tower, Natasha was stricken by a sudden fear of heights. Kenneth's original plan was to lure her to one side of the Tower where the Fountains of the Bellagio can be seen and “pop the question”. Natasha, however, was not feeling very adventurous and after only five minutes of enduring the icy wind was ready to return to the ground floor.
This was obviously not working with Kenneth's agenda, so he devised a muse to get Natasha to join him on one side of the Tower. He disappeared around the corner and called out to Natasha for her to join him and “watch the Bellagio fountains.” When Natasha came around she was extremely displeased to see that the Bellagio fountains were in fact not in show at all. She asked him “Why did you tell me the fountains had started!?“ He responded, “Because I need to ask you something.” At that point, he reached into his jacket pocket and presented an engagement ring to her.
At the site of such a gorgeous ring, Natasha became absolutely hysterical and in between tears and incoherent mumblings started to draw a crowd to witness the spectacle. A security guard took notice and came up to the couple to ask if everything was alright. Kenneth responded, “Yes I believe so. I just asked her to marry me, but she has not given me an answer yet” Natasha then gathered enough composure to nod her head and say “Yes! Yes of course!” They were then embraced by a symphony of whistles, applause and well wishes.
The Bride
Natasha was born on February 8th, 1985 in Beaumont, TX to Reginald Denson and Denise Levise. After her graduation from Beaumont Ozen High School, she obtained her B.S. degree in Nursing from Prairie View A&M University and is currently working as a registered nurse for the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center on the gastrointerlogical and sarcoma post-surgical floor.
The Groom
Kenneth was born on November 13th, 1981 in Houston, TX to Kenneth and Helen Rutland. He graduated from North Shore High School and attended Prairie View A&M University where he received his bachelor's degree in Computer Science. He is currently working as a software engineer for Consolidated Graphics.