THANKFUL FOR LOVE
With her family’s blessing, he proposed at Thanksgiving dinner — with 23 in attendance
When Egan Brinkman’s mother and stepfather asked him to help their Chicago friends Connie and Hugh Williams shop for a house in his area, he thought he would be spending a weekend or two giving a couple of Baby Boomers a tour of Napa Valley. He did not expect that, less than two years later, he would be dropping to one knee at Connie and Hugh’s Thanksgiving table and proposing to their daughter, Katherine, in front of 23 friends and relatives.
Egan, now 28, agreed to his parents’ February 2010 request, and the Williamses were so grateful to their tour guide that they invited him to dinner. He arrived to find not only Connie and Hugh but also Katherine and a few of her friends, who had taken a break from their studies at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Katherine, now 31, says the meeting was a coincidence and that her parents were not trying to set her up with Egan, but it didn’t stop Egan from being nervous.
“I was overwhelmingly impressed by Katherine and her friends,” he said. “They were just beautiful, articulate, welcoming and kind. I liked Katherine, but I
“I was overwhelmingly impressed by Katherine and her friends. They were just beautiful, articulate, welcoming and kind.” Egan Brinkman
was cautious because her parents were right there. I tried to be conservatively charming.”
Ilana Stern, a business school friend of Katherine’s who was not at the dinner, remembers hanging out with Katherine earlier that day.
“She complained about having to go to a dinner party with her parents’ friends,” Stern said. “The next day she called me and talked about the cute guy she met.”
The Williamses continued traveling between Chicago and Napa as they considered second homes and eventually bought one in Yountville. Each time they came to town, Katherine drove up to visit them and often stopped to catch up with Egan. But after her Stanford graduation in June 2010, Katherine took a job in Chicago.
When Egan learned she was coming back to visit her parents in Napa that Halloween, he decided to act on feelings he said had been building for months. He invited her to dinner — their first real date — and as waiters in Halloween costumes buzzed around them, Egan said, “All the stars sort of aligned. “
Katherine agreed. “We connected.” When she boarded her plane back to Chicago shortly after, she was officially part of a long-distance relationship.
“We talked on the phone every night and sent e-mails and texts in between,” Katherine recalled.
Egan remembers Katherine flying out to visit him on weekends when his job required him to work Saturday and Sunday. “I could only see her in the evenings and she would still fly out,” he said. “When you meet someone who is really that special, you want to do whatever you can to make it work.”
After spending Christmas and New Year’s with Egan — and six of his best friends whom he’d worked with in the Peace Corps in Ghana — Katherine decided her days in Chicago were numbered. During that same visit, Egan told his friends Katherine was “the one.”
By August 2011, Egan secured a new job at Google and a new San Francisco apartment, and Katherine arrived for good, taking a Bay Area job in commercial real estate. She had previously told Egan she hoped to be engaged by the end of the year, but he still wanted his proposal to be a surprise.
One of Katherine’s friends asked her to help select a ring — ostensibly for the friend’s girlfriend. In actuality, the friend was Egan’s decoy, and Katherine was really selecting her own ring.
Next, Egan enlisted Katherine’s parents, who suggested he propose during the family’s Thanksgiving tradition: Each person around the table shares something they’re thankful for.
“She’s so close with her family, I always knew she’d want them to be a part of it,” Egan said. “It was a great idea, but when I realized there were 23 people there for Thanksgiving dinner, I had to steady myself.”
Katherine’s mom kicked off the words of thanks, and slowly, the game worked its way around to Katherine, who was second to last. “Especially this year, I’m thankful for love,” she said, looking at Egan.
A moment later, he was kneeling beside her. “I don’t know if she even heard what I said. I think she just saw me drop to one knee,” he said.
“I was shocked,” Katherine recalled. “Happily shocked. I thought it might happen that weekend, but I was surprised he’d do it in front of all my friends and family.”
Just under a year later, friends and family were assembled again — this time for a wedding at the Napa Valley Country Club. Egan said they picked Napa because it “felt like the right place. Not her hometown or my hometown, but the place where our relationship got its legs.”
The bridesmaids wore dresses from Weddington Way, an online service that lets bridesmaids order dresses customized to their styles and measurements in the color and fabric of the bride’s choosing. Katherine’s friend Ilana Stern founded the company after the two graduated from Stanford together.
Katherine and Egan wrote their vows together and added a Wine Country touch: They each took a sip from a single glass of wine and then the minister poured the rest out, representing the idea that marriage doesn’t contain a husband and wife but sets them free to go together in any direction they choose. Kathryn Roethel is a freelance writer in Palo Alto. E-mail your stories of upcoming weddings, celebrations and anniversaries to lovestories@ sfchronicle.com