By Mia Watkins | The Birmingham Times
Shawn & Justin Williams
Live: Southwest Birmingham
Married: June 5, 2021
Met: It wasn’t love at first sight for Shawn and Justin Williams when they met at Riverchase Galleria in 2006.
“He was cute,” Shawn said. “When he said he was 19, I told him he was too young. I walked away and went to the shoe store.”
Shawn was with her best friend and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. line sister, Keri, and Justin was with his best friend and Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. line brother, Greg. All four were students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Greg and Keri stopped to speak to each other.
Even though Justin struck out on their first conversation, Shawn said the two kept running into each other on campus and through mutual friends.
“I think he saw it as a cat-and-mouse game,” she said. “That went on for over a year.”
Shawn playfully called Justin a stalker.
“I finally gave in at some point, apparently” she said with a laugh.
She said the more she got to know him, the more she saw past their three-year age gap.
“He was a good guy with no kids from a two-parent home in college,” she said. “I was like, ‘He’s got all the things.’”
First date: The two went to Stix in Hoover for their first date. Justin remembers Shawn wearing a green, backless top.
He said his first impression of her was that she was feisty. As they began to talk, he began to learn more about Shawn.
“She had a lot of great qualities as a person,” he said. “She was attractive and all those things. Of course, as we continued to converse, I got to know the person outside of what I saw initially. I actually got a chance to learn who she was and what she was all about.”
Shawn thought Justin, a pastor’s son, was a by-the-book kind of guy.
“I probably thought he was a square because he didn’t cuss or drink,” she laughed. “He was extremely respectful. He did all the things: the opening of the car door, the pulling the chair out. He’s kind. He didn’t really have any of the college gossip attached to him like other guys.”
As they began dating, Justin said he discovered Shawn’s caring heart and her ambition.
“She was very goal-oriented,” he said. “She was driven to get to a certain place in life, to put herself in a certain place as far as what she saw her future looking like. She had a lot of wifely qualities. She was caring, not from an I can do stuff, she was kind of like a ride or die.”
“I could cut greens up,” she interjected.
“I mean, but how many girls can cut greens up in college,” he replied.
The turn: Shawn said they never had a discussion about becoming official. But Justin said they became serious after a college trip to President Barack Obama’s inauguration in Washington, D.C.
“At that point, it was like, OK, what are we doing here?” he said.
He said she gave him an ultimatum.
“On the way back, it was like we’re spending time together and doing all this conversing,” he said. “What is this going to be? Is this going somewhere or not going somewhere? At that point, I kind of had to make a decision. Am I going to be serious about this or am I just going to let this individual walk away. So, I decided to step up to the plate and move forward.”
Shawn said she knew Justin was her person fairly early into dating.
“I remember telling Keri that that was my husband,” she said. “She reminds me of that all the time.”
Justin said he didn’t realize it as soon as Shawn because he wasn’t prepared for a long-term relationship in college.
“Just being young, and still trying to find your way, I think I realized it over time,” he said. “I learned that these qualities don’t come in every individual. As you grow and mature, you realize what you have in front of you versus not paying attention to it and allowing your attention to drift elsewhere.”
She said she appreciates Justin’s tenacity.
“He’s just goal-oriented,” she said. “He goes after things. When it’s something he wants, he’s going to work hard towards it, he is going to take classes, read books and invest in himself. He’s going to give knowledge back to others along the way.”
For Justin, Shawn’s great qualities shine through, especially now that they have a family.
“I admire her strength, her compassion,” he said. “She has motherly qualities, but not necessarily how you take care of the baby. Her emotional intelligence…she’s strong in areas I’m not strong in. I don’t do very well in gray areas. I’m very black and white. She fills in the gaps, not only building my emotional intelligence, but really teaching our son. He has triggers and can recognize queues. Of course, that didn’t come from me; that came from her nurturing. She knows how she wants to be loved and how to relay those qualities to him.”
The proposal: Shawn gave Justin a deadline because she didn’t want to continue living together without a ring, and he came in right under the wire. They had been living together for a few years because it made economic sense. She gave him until New Year’s Day.
“He still wasn’t ready to get married, and rightfully so,” she remembered. “He had the right to not be ready, but we were also living together for four or five years.”
Justin popped the question on New Year’s Eve in front of friends and family. Before getting down on one knee, he said he was still trying to figure out if an engagement was the next step for their relationship at the time.
“Sometimes, for the greater good, you have to make decisions that you may not personally be ready for,” he said. “If you feel like you have a great person, sometimes you have to step up to the plate for the sake of maintaining the relationship and we can work on whatever else along the way, versus having your relationship implode just because you’re not ready.”
He already had the ring.
“I went in and looked at several,” he said. “I made a decision and bought the ring. Then, I knew we were going into New Year’s Day, so this would be the perfect time for me to do it. She was going to have some family here, so this was a great opportunity to do it. It would have some kind of sentimental tie.”
He coordinated with the staff at the Grand Bohemian hotel in Mountain Brook and invited his friends and her family.
“I went and got a room for the evening so that we could stay at the property,” he said. “I invited a few close people.”
He sang “Get You” by Daniel Caesar and proposed after they all had dinner.
The wedding: Like many couples, their wedding plans were derailed by the Covid pandemic. They were initially supposed to get married toward the end of 2020, but they eventually moved it to June of the next year once it was safe to gather together.
They got married in front of 300 guests. They both agreed pairing down the guest list was the biggest challenge of wedding planning.
“I had a pretty massive guest list,” Justin said. “My mom is one of 10, and my dad is one of eight. That’s over 150 people by itself. “
The challenges weren’t over, however. They had to move their venue from an outside space at Fort Conde Inn to a local church the day of the ceremony, costing them $15,000. But the two had an extravagant reception at the Daphne Civic Center.
“Having to make that shift of where it’s going to be for the group, as you go through the rest of the day, you finally get a chance to relax and enjoy,” Justin said. “You get the chance to enjoy the time with family and friends.”
Shawn remembers attendees having a great time with the couple, so much so that many of the reception traditions were skipped.
“Because people were having such a fun time, we didn’t do the speeches and other things,” she said. “I think because everybody was locked up for so long, everybody had a really good time. What stands out to me the most is looking back at the pictures and seeing that everyone was having such a good time.”
The honeymoon: The two spent a few days relaxing in Destin, Florida. While they were there, their rental SUV broke down with all of the decorations inside.
“We were at the outlets in one of those newer Ford Expeditions and it would not come out of park,” Justin said. “We literally had all the wedding stuff just in the parking lot. Eventually a tow truck came and we ended up swapping out the rental car.”
Words of wisdom: Shawn said that it’s important for people to study their significant others and to ask questions.
“Before marriage, there needs to be discussion on everything from how you’re going to handle finances to what happens if someone gets sick,” she said.
Justin that it’s important to respect the differences of your partner.
“Can you respect those differences?” he said. “You all will be different. Everyone has different things they bring to the table. If they bring those things to table, can you truly live with those differences? All the different upbringings and values are going to come down to respecting each other’s differences when you have to make a decision.”
Happily ever after: Shawn is a nurse practitioner who founded eCure, a concierge healthcare service. Justin is a co-CEO and team leader at Keller-Williams. They are parents to a 3-year-old son, Joyner.
“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.
