Page 32 - South Mississippi Living - February, 2017

ROMANCE & WEDDING perfect start
ENGAGEMENT
story by Kelsey Sunderman-Foster photos by James Edward Bates and courtesy of April Crum Hoyt
pril Crum Hoyt, our section front model for this year’s Romance & Wedding issue, is a Gulf Coast native and Gulfport resident who teaches third grade at Bayou View Elementary School. She and her husband, Robert Hoyt, recently celebrated their third wedding
anniversary.
Ever since the two were introduced to one another by a
mutual friend, April and Robert have been the perfect pair. “We hit it off from the start,” said April. “Right after we met, I had to leave to take my best friend home and I told Robert it was a Cinderella moment.”
Robert told her he would wait around for her to come back, and, of course, April thought he was kidding. However, when April arrived to meet up with the rest of her friends, Robert was anxiously and patiently waiting for her.
“We talked non-stop for the next week, and had our first date carving pumpkins,” April recalled. Later that week,
they went to dinner and a concert, and knew immediately what their relationship would become. When April met Robert’s parents for the first time in November, Robert’s father, Bruce Hoyt, told him they would be engaged by April. It happened in June, but he wasn’t too far off!
On June 26, 2012, Robert told April he was taking her to an early birthday surprise. “There was a show playing at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi that I had been wanting to see, so I assumed that was it,” she remembers.
Instead, Robert blindfolded her and took her to The Old Place in Gautier, where he led her to a particular section
of the property. He removed her blindfold, and she started crying once she realized where she was. “We were next to the ‘Lover’s Tree,’ an old oak tree that splits into two above the base, with a bench between the two trunks,” April said.
Robert had lilies, April’s favorite flowers, on the bench waiting for her and began his speech explaining his love for her and his dreams for them. He then got down on one knee and asked her to marry him. “I couldn’t speak,” April said.
WHAT STARTED out as a romantic engagement turned into a perfect wedding at the First Baptist Church of Vancleave.
“So I just nodded my head with tears of joy flowing down my face.”
Robert and April married on December 14, 2013, at the First Baptist Church of Vancleave. “We chose to have our wedding at my home church; the church where I was baptized, where my parents renewed their vows, and where my brother, Edward, got married. I couldn’t imagine saying ‘I do’ anywhere else,” she said.
32 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • February 2017
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