Erin and Alanna

When she was looking for the perfect place to propose to her girlfriend, it’s no surprise that Alanna Wahl (above, right) chose a giant Keith Haring painting. Her fiancé, Erin Carroll, first discovered his work when she was a teenager and even got a tattoo of one of his paintings. “I love the playfulness of his work, but also, as a queer artist, Haring used his art to spread important messages,” Erin explained. I recently chatted with Alanna and Erin, who live in Minneapolis, about how the proposal…

How’d you meet?
Alanna: We met working at the school where I’m an administrator. Before she started as a learning specialist, Erin reached out to ask whether she would have to supervise lunch. I remember thinking to myself, Who is this person already questioning whether they’re gonna have to do lunch duty?! [laughs]

Erin, your relationship with your ex-husband ended right around when you started this new job. Can you talk about that?
Erin: I knew I was queer in like third grade, but I didn’t have many queer role models in my life. I came out as bi in high school. I met a guy in college and thought he was my person. We got married young and had two perfect kids. After the youngest was born, I was grappling with this question of how to be a queer person in a hetero marriage. We were having lots of conversations, and the issue was bubbling and bubbling. I remember sitting in our kids’ playroom, crying, and my husband was kneeling next to me, and I said, ‘I think I’m gayer than I thought I was.’ He hugged me and was like, ‘I’m so sorry you’ve been holding that in.’ Obviously, there was sadness and mourning on both sides. Right around when I started the new job, my husband and I separated. We then divorced.

By the time the school year ended nine months later, you and Alanna were both single. How did things shift from a friendship?
Erin: Well, I had a crush first. There was definitely a magnetism between us. I felt like a giddy teenager.
Alanna: That following summer, we went on a few official dates. We had our first kiss in a restaurant parking lot as we were walking out to our cars.

What are you two like as a couple?
Erin: One night, going to bed, at the exact same moment, I kid you not, we both said, ‘Thank you for loving me.’ Then we burst out laughing. When you have already been in other serious relationships, there’s a different sense of appreciation. We both see our relationship as this sanctuary.

People often talk about the moment they knew they wanted to spend their life with someone. Did you have one of those?
Alanna: As the assistant director of a school, I have hundreds of kids in my life, so I had always thought I’d be fine not having my own. But there was a moment when we were sitting with Erin’s two kids, and she was reading When Aiden Became a Big Brother. I was overwhelmed by the sense that I could have this family and be with this woman and her two kids as a bonus mom. I just remember being like, How could I ever have imagined that I would find this?
Erin: When we were just dating, I’d been kind of trying to hide the hard parts of parenting because I didn’t want to scare Alanna away. But one night, she stayed over, and my older kid had a huge meltdown. Alana got her a little flashlight and sat with her. It was so affirming. It’s one thing for me to be able to see myself with someone, but to be able to see somebody in my kids’ lives is a totally different level.

Alanna, how’d you propose?
Alanna: I saw that there was Keith Haring show at the Walker Art Center, and Erin loves Keith Haring. For her birthday, a few days before, I gave her two tickets to see the show.

Walk me through the day of.
Erin: When we were at the Walker, I had this funny feeling that she might propose. At one point, she went to the bathroom, and I thought, Oh my gosh, is she going to come back and propose? But she came back and we just kept going through the exhibit.

Alanna: We were in front of a big Keith Haring painting, and I said, ‘Hold on one second.’ Then I pulled the ring out.
Erin: Because I was so surprised, my first words were ‘No,’ but not in a ‘Don’t do it!’ way, more like ‘No way you pulled it off!’

Erin: The whole thing was an out-of-body experience. I also remember hearing the click, click, click of the camera.
Alanna: I’d reached out to a photographer, Katy, and planned to have her there to capture the moment.

Where are your rings from?
Erin: I’d had some jewelry from my grandma and had been designing a ring with four little diamonds to symbolize the four of us. But I didn’t like the idea of only one of us wearing a ring.
Alanna: I secretly went to the jeweler and had a companion ring made. After I proposed, I told her I had one more surprise and got out the ring I’d designed for myself! She also ended up doing her own proposal a few weeks later, but it was nice to be able to have rings right then.

What happened after the proposal?
Alanna: We walked around the sculpture garden right outside the museum and took some photos. Then we went out to dinner and then went to the Lynx WNBA game.
Erin: I’d said ‘yes’ to Alanna, but we said it wasn’t official until the kids said yes, too. The next morning, we sat them down, and Alanna asked them if she could marry me. They were thrilled. Our six-year-old is very interested in wedding planning — her idea is to do it in the park with juice boxes and granola bars.

Thank you for sharing your story, Erin and Alanna. Congratulations!

P.S. More proposal stories, and would you do a first look?

(Proposal photographs by Katy Greseth of Captured Glory Photography. Family photos courtesy of the subjects.)