A whirlwind romance ends with an Eiffel Tower proposal on a surprise trip to the City of Light.
“I know it’s very cliché,” says Ziggy Shockley, “but we actually met at our local bar. I remember eyeballing this very attractive man standing against the wall.” William and Ziggy ended up chatting throughout the night. “He made my knees weak!” says Ziggy. He watched William leave and was filled with regret when he realized they hadn’t exchanged numbers. Ziggy ran outside and caught William before he got into his car. “Not only did we exchange numbers, but we kissed right then and there. It was totally unexpected, but absolutely lovely.”
That night as Ziggy drove home, he was elated. “I had a permanent smile on my face. I was on cloud nine!” he recollects. “After I got home, we texted back and forth for hours.” The next day, William told Ziggy that he lived in Orlando, but came to Sarasota often, where Ziggy was living at the time. William was as good as his word, and went to Sarasota to visit Ziggy and take him to his favorite restaurant downtown. “I was falling hard and fast by this point,” says Ziggy.
The couple had a long-distance relationship for two months before Ziggy decided to pack up and join William in Orlando. “The day after Christmas, William asked me to move in with him. I said yes, of course, and moved in the very next day.” Ziggy says that was a turning point in his life, when everything changed for the better.
William had bought Ziggy a new pair of work shoes for his birthday. Ziggy is a veterinary technician and is on his feet all day. But inside the shoes were a pair of airline tickets to Paris for their one-year anniversary and a hotel confirmation. The surprises didn’t stop there: For their anniversary dinner, they’d be dining at Le Jules Verne at the top of the world’s most recognizable landmark.
While in Paris, they gathered a picnic and sat in the park overlooking the tower. “It was just us in the park,” says Ziggy. “We sat there drinking wine and snacking on cheese. He looked at me and pulled out a ring and proposed. Of course I said yes!”
The couple decided to elope, as they were having a hard time deciding what to do for their wedding. “William had his sister Angie fly in, and we made it official on February 23, 2018,” says Ziggy.
The pair says that now they are married, things did change for them. “It’s definitely been great,” says Ziggy. “We are currently in the middle of buying our first home together and, who knows, maybe in the future we’ll have some little rugrats running around.” William and Ziggy are planning a big wedding party for May 2019, and look forward to having their friends and family around them to celebrate.
