0213 Kleimeyer-Culbreth
Craig Kleimeyer and Matt Culbreth
On Dec. 4, my boyfriend, Matt Culbreth, told me that before he headed home he had to meet his mom on the highway to “pick up some bills.” Now, I know he thought he was being sneaky, but I was secretly those bills were very pretty. I knew he and I both had a day off on Thursday, and I was hoping for an early Christmas present. My wish came true that Thursday night.
After looking at Christmas lights and eating dinner at Italian restaurant in English Village, we headed to Samford because we hadn’t seen the campus all decorated for Christmas and we knew it was beautiful at nighttime.
Matt asked if I would like to open my presents from him under the tree. He took out a little gift box, and inside was an ornament. Four more little boxes followed, and Matt talked about what they meant to us and how they were going to go on our Christmas tree. The fourth one was a 2012 ornament because, as he said, it was going to be the best Christmas I had so far so we needed to remember it. Finally, Matt took out the last ornament, telling me he thought I was going to like it the best.
I definitely got extremely anxious at this point, and it took me a second to take “the ornament” out after seeing that it was a ring box! I knew what that meant. I saw a sparkling ring and quickly threw my arms around Matt, exclaiming how beautiful it was. Matt asked me to marry him, looking into my eyes with a huge smile on his face. I screamed, “Of course!” and a few other sweet things, hugged him, and then started running in circles calling my family and texting all of my friends as Matt did the same.
We celebrate our second anniversary on Valentine’s Day, and we’ll be married at Reid Chapel on July 13 of this year.
Craig Kleimeyer interned for The Homewood Star and is a graduate student at Samford, where she and Matthew Culbreth met as undergraduates.
