By Mia Watkins | The Birmingham Times
TRALANA & HENRY BARNETT
Live: Pleasant Grove
Married: October 18, 2014
Met: Facebook is a place where you can find anything from a couch to your soulmate. Henry Barnett should know. That’s how he connected with his wife, Tralana.
“I was scrolling, and I noticed I had a friend request,” he said. “I click on it, and I see Tralana Wyatt. I had never met her. I scrolled through the pictures to see if, you know, seeing her face would jog my memory. It didn’t. I had no idea who she was. Back then, I would just accept friend requests just because, which is silly now. We started chatting, and she told me that she knew my sister.”
It turns out, the couple crossed paths way before social media. They went to the same high school. Henry was a year ahead of Tralana.
“I guess she’d seen me in the hallway in passing, but I never noticed her,” he said. “But I was like, ‘I don’t know who she is, but she’s fine, so I’ll accept it.”
First date: When the Barnetts first started talking, Henry lived in Montgomery, and Tralana lived in the Birmingham area. Their first date was a low-key one at a Montgomery Hooters.
“I was like, I’m going to be in town whatever weekend it was, and we can get together,” Tralana recalled. “Then he told me that he was planning on watching a UFC fight at Hooters. I was like, ‘Cool, I’ll tag along.’ That was kind of surprising for him because, usually, women aren’t into UFC. But I actually had watched it previously and enjoyed it.”
Henry said Tralana was late, so he got a beer and waited for her to arrive. After that, the evening flowed well for them.
“It was cool,” she said. “It was a good fight. We tried to have some conversation through nerves here and there. I ordered a grilled chicken salad with honey mustard dressing and offered him some. Unbeknownst to me, he wasn’t a salad eater at the time, but I kind of opened his palate up to that. It didn’t feel like we had to try a lot. We were just chilling.”
But their second date was more of a mini disaster, they said.
“I came up to visit her, and on my way to her apartment, I ended up getting lost,” Henry said. “I wasn’t really the one to take road trips, and this was before GPS on your phone. This was back in the MapQuest days. What was so crazy was that I stopped at a gas station to fill up. It turns out, I was all of maybe 10 minutes away from her apartment.”
Henry got back on the interstate and ended up in Leeds by the time Tralana called to check on him.
“I was so embarrassed,” he said. “I think I read off one of the road signs, and she was like, ‘No, no, no!” When I finally got to her apartment, I was thinking that I just messed this up. I was embarrassed for the rest of the night.”
“Coincidentally, I had been at a wedding reception for one of my line sisters earlier that afternoon and caught the bouquet,” Tralana explained. “I was like, I could have stayed at the reception longer.”
She used that moment later for the ultimate callback to their beginning.
“This was spring, and by Christmas, we were officially a couple,” she said. “I got him a GPS for his car for his first Christmas gift.”
The turn: Henry said that personal hardship helped him see that Tralana was the one for him.
“When we met, I had fallen on hard times just from being one of those young people who don’t make the best decisions,” he said. “She stuck by me through all of that. She didn’t judge me. She didn’t treat me any kind of way. If anything, she helped pull me out of it. I’m not going to say all women, but some women won’t do that. If they see a man who doesn’t have his stuff together, they may say they aren’t dealing with that. She didn’t do that; she stuck by me through it all. That’s when I knew. She helped me get back on my feet. She didn’t judge me, and that’s what I was really worried about.”
Tralana said that Henry’s relationship with his niece did it for her.
“Seeing him interact with his niece, our niece now, and how much he cares for her and loves her and puts effort towards a bond and a relationship with her,” she said. “I thought that was pretty solid. He’s caring and gentle with her. I felt like I could trust him with my heart, seeing that interaction.”
The proposal: The two got engaged in June 2013 on their dating anniversary.
“At least two years prior, we had formed a tradition to go to Ross Bridge and staycation for our anniversary,” Tralana said. “We would do a couple’s massage and just stay in, order room service and just be. We got to the hotel, checked in for our massages, and then we came back to the room. He wanted to go ahead and exchange gifts. He opened his gift first. Then, asked me to close my eyes, and when I opened them, he was down on one knee with the ring. Just like he was saying that I stuck by him, that’s part of what he said during his proposal.”
Tralana said it took her a moment to process her emotions, but she immediately said yes.
“He told me he asked my mama [for my hand in marriage] and I broke down,” she said. “I’m a delayed crier. I should have been crying when he asked me. That meant a lot to me. Everybody knew except for me.”
In fact, their family was afraid that their four-year-old niece was going to give away the surprise, but she didn’t.
The wedding: The couple was married at Beulah Primitive Baptist Church, Tralana’s home church in Hope Hull, with Elder Tim Gardner III presiding over the ceremony. Their colors were teal and purple, with peacock accents.
Tralana said she has fond memories of walking down the aisle.
“His reaction to seeing me, he cried really hard,” she said. “It was beautiful. I was like, ‘Wow.’ He doesn’t necessarily emote like that. I’ve only experienced him crying once before. I was like, ‘Wow, he’s really feeling the love. I looked around, and I saw other people also reacting to that, including my dad who was walking me down the aisle. I was smiling really hard. Cheeks hurting. It was very touching.”
“I was trying to hold it in, but I couldn’t,” Henry added.
Henry’s father served as his best man and helped him pull it back together.
He said that his anxiety was through the roof that day. He anxious about two things: falling and eating.
“On the way to the church, we stopped by the gas station, and I got a bag of popcorn and a Red Bull,” he said. “I was going to eat it on the way, but I couldn’t because I didn’t have an appetite. After the ceremony, I was so hungry. I was starving. We had to take pictures, and that took forever. That memory stands out. Also, I was like, please don’t let me trip walking down the aisle. It was cables and cords from the cameras and all that. Outside of that, it was a pretty smooth day for me.”
The honeymoon: The two haven’t been on an official honeymoon because they had to return to work the following week.
“We had to get right back to regular life,” Henry said.
Words of wisdom: The two say communication is key to a successful relationship.
“Just talk,” Henry said. “It’s not going to be peaches and cream every day. That’s not really life; you’re going to go through stuff. Just learn to talk it out. You’re going to have moments, every relationship does, but just learn to talk it out.”
Tralana added to that by saying that couples should learn each other’s communication styles.
“Everybody doesn’t communicate the same,” she said. “Whenever an issue comes up, try not to be defensive. Just listen to hear, not to respond, like the saying goes. That’s a good thing to do. Don’t get offended by it or be ready with your retort. You didn’t absorb anything that was just said to you. Everybody’s perspective is different. What’s important to one may not be important to the other, but it shouldn’t lessen the impact of it for the one who it may not be important to.”
Happily ever after: Tralana and Henry are busy raising their 8-year-old daughter, Haylee. Henry works at Mercedes-Benz building cars, while Tralana works at South College in the financial aid department. They are currently searching for a church home in the Birmingham metro area.
“You Had Me at Hello’’ highlights married couples and the love that binds them. If you would like to be considered for a future “Hello’’ column, or know someone, please send nominations to editor@birminghamtimes.com. Include the couple’s name, contact number(s) and what makes their love story unique.
