It’s not every day that Relient K helps with marriage proposals.
But for UNC senior Adam Bowers, the stars aligned and helped him pop the question this summer.
Bowers knew that his now-fiancée Shelby Benson would be blown away if her favorite band, Relient K — a contemporary Christian rock group — made a personalized video prefacing his proposal.
Bowers, a public relations student at UNC, turned to Twitter to make his plea to the nationally known band.
“I thought I had a snowballs’ chance in hell,” Bowers said. “I figured if I had any shot, Twitter was probably the best option.”
Bowers began tweeting at the band on May 20 with his newly created Twitter handle @HelpMeRelientK. He said that he observed when the band members were active on Twitter and strategically scheduled his tweets.
Bowers said he sent three to four tweets each day, but he had no way to gauge the reaction of the band members or if they noticed his tweets.
“I didn’t know at what point I should stop because I could have kept on going forever and never gotten a response,” he said.
But on May 30, the band’s guitarist, Matt Hoopes, sent Bowers a direct message with an email address to contact the band.
With the plan now in motion, Bowers had to keep it a secret from Benson. He said she almost found out one time.
“We were getting frozen yogurt in Rocky Mount and my phone buzzed It was the email from the band’s Twitter,” Bowers said. “I was trying not to freak out because Shelby was sitting right across the table from me.”
Benson said she thought Bowers’ behavior was weird, but she had no idea what was going on.
Relient K made the 19 second video on June 11, and Bowers proposed on June 20 in the Coker Arboretum at UNC.
Benson, a UNC senior studying business and administration, said Bowers set the whole thing up very well.
They were having a picnic in the arboretum when Bowers asked her if she had seen the new Relient K video. Benson said she assumed he meant a music video because the band was in the middle of producing an album.
But then the video began to play on Bowers’ laptop.
“He caught me completely off guard,” Benson said. “I couldn’t even process what was happening.”
When the video finished playing, Benson said she looked at Bowers and saw that he was on one knee.
Bowers’ planned worked – Benson said yes. The pair plan to get married June 30, 2013, at the Carolina Inn.
And will Relient K be there?
“We’re planning on sending them a wedding invitation, jokingly,” Benson said.
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