CORETTA & FLOYD COLLINS
By Mia Watkins | For The Birmingham Times
Live: Pelham
Married: Oct. 4, 2003
Met: Floyd Collins knew that Coretta would be his wife as a matter of science, much like the lessons they were learning in the science summer program at Alabama A&M University, where they met when they were 7th graders. Floyd, a Uniontown native, was there with his older brother, who was a student. Coretta, who hails from Wetumpka, was there with her uncle, who was a dean at the school.
“We were in a summer program that was sponsored by the National Science Foundation at Alabama A&M University. That’s where we first met,” said Floyd. “I sat behind her in the program. She had on Elizabeth Taylor Red. I smelled it, and before the program ended, I told her that she was going to be my wife. I just knew.”
The two exchanged letters and stayed in touch after they parted ways to return to their hometowns.
“We stayed friends, but these were the days of limited cellphones,” Coretta recalled. “It was like free after 9 p.m., or you would call and hang up before the minutes kicked in. We wrote like real letters.”
“They’re still at my mom’s house in a combination box,” said Floyd. “I remember when my brother found them, and I wanted to beat him up because he was reading them out loud.”
The two reunited in the same program in 9th grade. Then they both went to Alabama A&M for college, all the while staying just friends. That changed their junior year.
The turn: “Before we came to college, he had a girlfriend,” Coretta said. “When we got to college, I had a boyfriend and [Floyd] was a player. Junior year, he decided that he wanted to make his wishes truly known.”
Floyd has his own version of events.
“In the spring of 2001, we both are pledging our fraternity and sorority (Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.) She was crossing Delta that year. I go to the bookstore, and I buy absolutely everything Delta I could possibly find. She crosses, and she is there taking pictures with her boyfriend, whom I did not know about. I literally take everything back to the store, and I remember hanging out with my best friend, who was in our wedding, to get over it. Then, I approached her in total disbelief.”
“Then he finally maned up and said something,” Coretta said with a laugh. “I felt bad that I needed to break up with my boyfriend. He was a nice person, but that wasn’t where my heart was. I needed a little oomph to help me get over that hump. I had to call my mama and confide in her. She basically said I was going to have to do it, and that there was no way around it. She told me, ‘It’s going to hurt, but it will get better.’”
Their relationship became serious almost immediately after making it official.
“You’ve got to remember that we were already friends,” Coretta said. “I had met his parents before, and he had met my parents. So, we knew. My best friends, cousins and line sisters were all Team Floyd.”
“All our friends were actually in the wedding,” Floyd added.
The proposal: Floyd proposed to Coretta right after they graduated from Alabama A&M.
“We graduated on campus, and then we transitioned back to my apartment here in Birmingham, and all of the family was there,” he said. “They all knew I was going to be proposing, but she had no idea.”
“We were all gathered together, and she was in the bedroom and came out,” he continued. “She was standing between the den and the bedroom, and I remember getting down on one knee, proposing and telling her that she was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. She was crying and couldn’t get it out. She was choked up, and I got a little nervous.”
“I was so shocked,” she said. “He got me really good. We knew we were getting married, but I didn’t know he was going to propose that day. Of course, I said yes through my tears. Then I looked around like, ‘all of y’all knew about this?’”
The wedding: The two exchanged vows five months after Floyd proposed at Coretta’s home church, Mt. Zion Chapel AME Zion Church, in Wetumpka. It was the day after Floyd’s birthday. The wedding colors were her favorites: Victorian lilac, silver and white. The couple’s pastors, Rev. Anthony Trimble and Rev. Ron Burroughs, and the bride’s uncle, Rev. Claude Shuford, officiated the ceremony.
Floyd said one of his most memorable moments involved his uncle, Earl.
“So, you look out in the audience because you’re facing them,” he recalled fondly. “I just remember how he was crying harder than anyone else in the church, to the point where I got nervous, like, should I be crying that hard? I just remember him just being so full of emotion. It was just a happy day. It almost felt like it was a halo over the church. Reflecting back on it, that’s how nice the day was. The weather was great. All the family was there.”
He also remembers his best friend, Marty, bringing levity to the occasion through jokes.
“My friends were making fun of me, saying that now that I’m married, all I was going to be able to do was sit in the house and play PlayStation. When we were taking our pictures, Marty would count them down by saying, ‘One, two, three, PlayStation!”
“I remember walking in with my dad escorting me,” Coretta recalled. “I would start tearing up when I looked down the aisle and saw Floyd. My dad was trying to make jokes to keep me from crying, but it did not work.”
Floyd, like Uncle Earl, was moved to tears as he watched Coretta make her way down the aisle.
“It was just happiness,” he said. “It’s what you actually prayed for, and it’s actually happening in that moment. I remember being in my apartment, praying for a wife and praying that it was her. Then, it actually happened. That level of emotion in that moment is like, wow, your dreams are coming true. That’s a rare space to be in. It’s pretty special.”
Coretta remembers the first time the couple got a moment alone after the ceremony.
“The day, of course, had been like a whirlwind,” she said. That was the first moment we had to ourselves. It was kind of like a sigh of relief.”
The honeymoon: The two vacationed in Negril, Jamaica, at the Sandals resort, but that wasn’t without its hiccups.
“We get to the airport, and I don’t have my birth certificate,” Floyd said. “I called my dad because they had to reschedule our flight in Atlanta. We had to drive back from Atlanta, and he met us at a gas station and brought me my birth certificate. It was crazy, but Sandals was super accommodating. We had a great time. We loved it.”
Words of wisdom: “My words of advice are stay in the arena,” said Floyd. “What I mean by that is, it’s hard. Life threw us a bunch of curveballs. We lost a child at 36 weeks. Her mom, who was a big supporter, Coretta lost her to ovarian cancer. We have experienced a lot of life challenges. You’ve just got to stay in the arena and be there for each other. I think that’s what made our marriage so strong, all the obstacles and all the challenges. We leaned on each other to get through a lot of stuff.”
“You’ve got to keep the intention and follow through with it, even when the obstacles come,” Coretta added. “Remember, at the core, it’s an us. Nobody’s going to nurture us like us. We often joke about something we heard in reference to the Obamas: We’re the president. It’s us together. We also try to remember that even with three very active kids, it’s still us. They take a lot of our time and resources, but at the end of the day, when they’re grown and living for themselves, it’s still us. We still want to be connected. Even now, sometimes we’ll lose ourselves when we’re having date night. We’ll find ourselves talking about them and the schedule. We try to figure out what we can do to put the intention and focus back on us and get to know us again.”
They say that they’re proud to serve as an example of longevity to their children.
“I think it’s cool too now because our oldest is a freshman in high school, and he’s dating,” Floyd said. “He always asks questions about how I knew she was the one. He sees how we interact with each other. I think it’s cool to serve as a positive role model in the house of what a healthy relationship looks like.”
Happily ever after: Coretta and Floyd are parents to three children: 14-year-old Floyd Jr., 13-year-old Charleston and 9-year-old Savannah. They attend St. John AME Church in downtown Birmingham. Coretta is a hematology and oncology nurse practitioner at UAB. Floyd serves as the assistant superintendent for Pelham City Schools.
“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.
