Payton Phillips was watching her football-playing boyfriend on the field. Will Givens was watching her. It wasn't long before they both turned their eyes toward a long future together.
They were just 15 in 2003 when they were introduced at a Catholic High School for Boys football game at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock. Payton, a freshman at Mount St. Mary Academy, was in the stands with a bunch of her friends. Will, a freshman at Catholic High, was there with a guy Payton knew from elementary school.
The first time I saw my spouse:
She says: “I thought he was cute and funny. I don’t remember what he said, but I do remember laughing.”
He says: “I thought, ‘Man, she is hot.’ I was in the ninth grade.”
On our wedding day:
She says: “I was really nervous because I don’t really do well in front of crowds, but I was just very excited to be at that point after so long. We were glad that everybody was happy and excited for us.”
He says: “I just remember the way she looked in the dress completely changed the way I saw what was going on. Up until the time I saw her I knew what was going on but reality really hit when I saw her. I thought, ‘Whoa. Here it is.’ I had waited 10 years. I was ready.”
The best advice we have for a long happy marriage:
She says: “Be honest with one another and really work for your marriage. Love is a great thing and it comes naturally but you still have to work on a relationship and a marriage.”
He says: “Marriage is tough. It’s hard and you have to work for it. There are times when she’s going to drive me insane but I have to know that you’re there and will always be there.”
"She was standing in the row in front of me, and I kept thinking, 'Man, she's awful good looking.' My friend Chris said, 'Well, I can introduce you to her.'"
Payton doesn't remember what they talked about, but she does remember laughing. He knew he had to talk to her again before the game clock ran out.
"Somebody said they were going to call somebody later, and I turned around and said, 'Hey, since we're passing out phone numbers, I'll take yours too,'" he says.
He called her the next day, and not long after that he asked her for a date.
"She said no," he says. "And that was very good. That's what she should have done."
She was seeing someone else, he discovered -- a guy Will realized was in one of his classes.
"That's why she was at a Catholic football game," he says.
Will knew they broke up a few weeks later but he didn't ask Payton out again for a while.
"I was pretty quick the first time, but with everything after that I took my time," he says.
They'd been going out for movies and dinners with a group of friends for a while, but the week Will got his driver's license, he and Payton, sophomores by then, went to a dinner and a movie alone.
They still hung out with their friends, "but we went on a lot more dates, just the two of us, or we might go to the movies together and meet up with them somewhere after," she says.
Right before graduation, Will decided they should break up.
"I thought we had been together for so long that we should see other people. She didn't feel the same way," he says.
They started classes at Pulaski Technical College that fall and started meeting on campus and talking more and more.
"It was time for us to get back together," Payton says.
They were inseparable through the remainder of their two years at Pulaski Tech. Then Payton went to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock for a semester, back to Pulaski Tech for one semester for some more science classes, and then to Baptist Health Schools of Little Rock.
She is now a surgical technologist in labor and delivery at Baptist Health Medical Center North Little Rock. Will works during the day for Jane Construction and three nights a week for Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock.
Over the years, Will thought -- and Payton hoped -- they would marry someday. First, though, he wanted financial stability. One afternoon in November 2013, 10 years after they met, he suggested they go for a walk that evening. His plan was to propose against the backdrop of a beautiful sunset.
"She said, 'Well, we've got to go grocery shopping and we've got all this other stuff to do. Let's go now.' And it was like 2 o'clock."
They sat on a bench that afternoon at Two Rivers Park, and with no sunset to gaze upon, Will searched for something else to catch Payton's eye so he could get the ring out of his pocket without her seeing.
"I pointed to a stump or something out in the river -- there really wasn't anything there -- and I said, 'Hey, what is that out in the river?' She looked and said, 'I don't know,' and looked right back. I thought, 'No, I need more time than that!' So I said, 'No, what is that out there?' and she stood up and looked and I got the ring out of my pocket and got down on one knee and she was still looking. It was like a minute, a minute and a half, two minutes, and she was still looking."
She did finally turn around and he asked his question.
After the proposal, they shared a few quiet moments, then broke out their phones and began disseminating the news. "And then we went grocery shopping because grocery shopping was on the list of things to do and it had to be done," he says.
They exchanged their vows on Sept. 27, 2014, at Loft 1023 in downtown Little Rock.
It didn't come as much of a shock to their friends and family that they were finally getting married.
Payton, however, had started to think it would never happen.
"I was probably more surprised than what people would have thought I would have been," she says. "I was getting a little impatient. I really felt like it was never going to come," she says, "but it finally did, so the waiting paid off."
If you have an interesting how-we-met story or if you know someone who does, please call (501) 378-3496 or email:
cjenkins@arkansasonline.com
High Profile on 02/22/2015