She Said Yes. Twice. – The New York Times

Damon Holick could hardly believe it when his mother called in April of 2021 to say she thought she saw a photo of him on television proposing to Erica Willard. She was right. The photo of Mr. Holick on one knee in front of Ms. Willard at the pier in the Woodlands, Texas, at Hughes Landing was sent to a TV station in Houston by a woman who just happened to see the proposal in action. The sweet capture quickly went viral.

And there was even more to the story. It turns out this was one of two proposals for the young couple who were both born and raised in Conroe, Texas, and both served in the Navy. Mr. Holick, 24, went straight into the Navy as a reservist after high school and got out as soon as he could, realizing it wasn’t, “his thing,” he said. He is a sales representative for T-Mobile and recently started his own business, Primitive Wrap Company, wrapping cars.

Ms. Willard, 22, entered active duty in the Navy right after high school, too, and is now a stay-at-home parent to their two children, Charlotte Ivy Holick, 2, nicknamed Charlee, and Giulia Blake Holick, an infant.

The couple met in 2015 when they were in high school. Mr. Holick had invited some friends to his home while his mother was out of town, and Ms. Willard had stopped by with another friend.

Despite his self-admitted shyness, he asked for her phone number and mustered up the courage to text her after the party. The two have been together ever since.

They ended up having not one but two engagements. “I had ordered a ring from J.C. Penney, which was taking forever to get here, and one day I couldn’t take it,” Mr. Holick said.

On April 5, 2021, he left work, drove home as quickly as he could, and ran inside. “She was napping with the kids and I grabbed her, woke her up, pulled up the picture of the ring I bought her on my phone, and asked her right then and there,” Mr. Holick said.

Mr. Holick also had made plans in mid-April of 2021 with a videographer to create a proposal video. “That’s where the picture that went viral got captured,” he said. “I rented my dream car for it, a Nissan GTR. It starts off with me buying the ring and ends with the proposal on the pier.”

The story got coverage in Houston and across the country. When the couple posted their engagement video on social media, J.C. Penney reached out and sent a gift card so Mr. Holick could buy his tuxedo and Nissan sent a box of branded gifts and a letter of congratulations. “I couldn’t believe it,” Mr. Holick said.

The couple married in Las Vegas at A Little White Wedding Chapel on June 6, 2021, their six-year anniversary as a couple with several family members in attendance, including Mr. Holick’s mother, Christy Laurent, and Ms. Willard’s mother, Megan Lovett.

“I started walking down the aisle to this cheesy recorded wedding music and when I got to the end, the lady just hit stop,” Ms. Willard said. “I was laughing and then Damon and I were both laughing and then we started crying happy tears.”

The ceremony was barely 10 minutes long. Still, the children were ready for a nap by the time it was over. So they returned to the hotel, ordered MrBeast Burger through Uber Eats, and toasted with champagne glasses that had Eiffel towers for stems.