As soon as the words “Ms. Christina, I wanted to talk to you, I have something to ask you” came out of his mouth, I knew. I knew in one millisecond he was going to change my household completely. I knew my little girl — that I refuse to think of as old enough to even live on her own — would soon be a different person.

I actually blurted out a single word to him, “no,” and then stood perfectly still for a second, took a deep breath and told him OK, go ahead.

And go ahead he did. On Friday evening, in words that conveyed to me his sincere feelings for her, Parker asked me for permission to marry my daughter Holly.

Of course, I cried and we managed to keep the conversation a secret from Holly.

His plan was a simple one. His parents were flying in from Dallas. We were all planning on going to dinner later in the evening. He would take her and propose and then we would all spend the evening celebrating. Sounds simple enough, right?

Well, like most well planned things at the Hall house nothing ever ends up being simple.

About five minutes after Parker talked to me, his father called. When their plane arrived at Baton Rouge there was a raging storm. After circling several times, the plane was forced to land in Alexandria, La., to wait until thery could return the passengers to Baton Rouge.

Not to worry I told him. He could take Holly and propose. His parents could meet us at the restaurant a little later and everything would be fine.

Nope. The detail I didn’t know was that the parents were bringing the engagement ring.

So, I told Parker to have a seat while I poured him and me a cocktail. Here is where the story gets funny.

Holly came into the room and Parker explained what was going on with his parents. You could tell he was stressing out about the situation, which is totally unlike him. Holly, not knowing the underlying plan, made light of it. Telling him not to worry. If his parents were late they could meet us for dinner, she said. Or at worst, if they were really late, we would see them Saturday morning, after all they were going to be here all weekend.

Seeing his obvious stress over her comment, she then proceeded to tell him to stop worrying, his parents and her mother would get along fine, everything would work out and he needed to just relax.

The look on his face when she walked out of the room was priceless and certainly not one of relaxation.

I thanked my lucky stars that I live in small town and called the restaurant and pushed the reservation back and crossed my fingers. Finally Parker’s cell phone rang with good news — his parents were on their way to Baton Rouge.

Since Parker’s parents and I had never met that was the only reason Holly could think of that would be causing Parker such stress. Again, she told him to relax and not to worry.

Holly, Parker and I left the house headed to the Pub at Dunleith for appetizers as hunger was not helping Parker at all.

I left Emily with strict instructions to be at Pearl St. Pasta to hold our table as I had no idea when we would make it there. There at the Pub we fortified Parker with some food, I whispered to friends who were there as Parker’s finger nervously tapped.

Finally the call came. Not only were mom and dad on their way, they were about 10 minutes from town. We paid our bill and headed to the Briars. On the way to the car I couldn’t help but laugh when Holly blithely told Parker “See, I told you everything would be fine, they are almost here and we can just make our dinner reservations.”

Moments after we pulled up at the Briars the Parker’s parents pulled up, introductions were made and the ring swap was handled without Holly knowing a thing.

I offered to show them to their room. Parker walked Holly over to the gazebo under the pretext of looking around. By the time luggage was in the room and we had exchanged pleasantries and peered outside several times here came the happy couple. The smile on my daughter’s face said it all.

From the weekend was a whirlwind of activity dinners, lunches, tours of homes, visits to downtown shops, golf at Beau Pre and finally Sunday evening dinner at our house where of course the conversation centered on dates, venues, bands and other wedding ideas.

The Parker’s parents turned out to be the kind of people I would be great friends with even if our children weren’t engaged. And their visit to Natchez couldn’t have gone better, even though the storm Saturday night knocked out their electricity.

Quite by accident we had invited them to visit on the weekend of the Food and Wine Fest. We were only able to attend one of the events this past weekend but I was so glad to see the number of people in town for the event. Everywhere we went people were talking about the meals and events they had attended. A big thank you to the planners of this event, it is a huge undertaking and it does a lot for our town in the heat of summer.