Violet JiraMost people walk out of the University of Mississippi’s J.D. Williams Library with books. But on Dec. 14, Mweyeria Offord walked out with a question — and an answer — for her now fiance Cellas Hayes, who used a creative library scavenger hunt to pop the question. Spoiler alert — she said yes.
Hayes is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Pharmacy, and Offord is working towards a Master’s Degree in Higher Education Administration, both at the University of Mississippi. Their son, Caspian, is one year old.
This particular milestone in their relationship has gained the couple impressive internet attention, with a TikTok Hayes posted of the proposal currently sitting at over 1 million views.
“She said YES!” Hayes wrote in the caption.
But most don’t know their relationship stretches all the way back to 2016, when Hayes first saw her in a cafeteria on campus.
“We met in 2016 in the Luckyday cafeteria. That’s the first time I saw her,” Hayes said. “Then I got her number on Sep. 19 in the union, and then we had our first conversation outside of the library.
The spot where they had their first conversation in 2016 is where Hayes would kneel and propose five years later.
“We were just like any other couple in college, trying to figure it out together, trying to get through personal stuff, professional student life stuff,” Offord said. “And growing together, learning together, learning about ourselves, learning about each other, learning how to love, learning how to love ourselves by loving each other. Like, that kind of thing.”
When the time came to pop the question, Hayes struggled to decide how to go about it. He had some criteria — for example, he wanted it to be private. The Monday Hayes bought the ring — which was the Monday before he proposed — he still had not decided exactly what to do. But in the end, everything played out perfectly.
“I was walking between the library and the Lyceum then I was like ‘I should do a scavenger hunt.’ That’s when finals week had just ended — nobody was going to be on campus,” he said. “Then I was like, ‘I’ll do a scavenger hunt in the library’. She likes books. I could use her favorite books, not just any books.”
Hayes described the idea materializing quickly in his mind as he set about getting everything ready. The proposal included some of Offord’s, who has a B.A. in English, favorite titles like Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” and Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”
Meanwhile Offord — right up to the moment she solved the hunt to reveal the question — did not suspect a thing. Largely due to the fact that creative, romantic gestures from Hayes are something she was used to.
“I had no idea because since we met, he’s always been extremely creative, very romantic, like naturally. So I’m thinking like, this is just another romantic gesture like he’s telling me nice things and he has me going on this whole thing,” she said.
The couple had also established that if they were to get engaged, it would be post-graduate school.
“So that’s why it was never in my mind that that’s what he was about to do, because we’re not done with school yet,” Offord said. “When I got done and I had to unscramble those letters, it took like 15 minutes to unscramble, because he was missing a few letters. I unscrambled it and when I realized what it said I looked at his friend and I said, ‘there is no way that this man is asking me to marry him today.’”
As the viral video captures, Offord exits the library walking to where Hayes is offering a ring on one knee.
“Are you sure?” Offord asked after saying yes. “About me?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Hayes replied before asking her the same question.
“Yes,” she responded. “I’ve been sure.”
Two months later, as they move into their third month of being engaged, the video of their engagement is going viral yet again as Valentine’s Day approaches, this time on Twitter.
The couple is planning a small courthouse ceremony in April 2023 and a larger wedding event in April 2024, when they are further along and finished with their higher education, and when COVID-19 has hopefully subsided enough for the event to be maskless. It goes without saying that the memory of their engagement will remain fresh in their minds as the couple continues this new chapter together.
“When you think about it, and you’ve been with somebody since you were 18 years old, and this person watched you, basically every phase of their life,” Offord said. “You really want to do this forever. And it was just so surreal. And it was one of the best moments of my life.”
