“Present We’ve Been Waiting To Unwrap” (Exclusive)

Engaged couple Kaytlin O’Neall and Drew Brown refuse to lock lips until they’ve said ‘I do’

Until they hear the words “You may kiss the bride,” an engaged couple refuses to lock lips.

Kaytlin O’Neall and Drew Brown, both 21, have been dating for almost four years but have never kissed. When O’Neall wrote, “Disclaimer! You don’t have to kiss to get a ring 💍,” in a TikTok video of his recent proposal, the internet had a lot to say.

Some users called the newly engaged couple’s decision to take their time with physical intimacy special, while other commenters criticized the choice not to kiss.

“May this kind of relationship NEVER find me ✋🏼,” wrote one commenter, with another arguing: “Don’t we kiss because we have to? We kiss because it’s a sign of affection.”

But O’Neall and Brown are used to criticism online. This isn’t the first time they’ve gone viral for their no premarital kissing rule. In 2022, another video posted on TikTok by the bride-to-be titled “✨Things people have said when they found out me and my boyfriend of almost 2 years haven’t kissed✨” received more than 2 .5 million views and almost 4,000. comments

In the video, O’Neall listed common responses he gets when people find out about their relationship dynamic, including, “Really!?!??!” “That needs to take some self control!!!” “You know you can just kiss, it’s not the end of the world!” “WHY!?!???” “Okay, but what else do you do?” and “Come on, DO IT!!”

Despite the external pressure, O’Neall and Brown continue their dominance. Non-denominational Christians have clarified in other TikTok videos that “toxic purity culture” is not why they saved their first kiss for their wedding day, nor was it “brainwashed” or they have forced into this limit by no one of their religion. circle “It’s truly because we heard this conviction from the Lord,” O’Neall said in a recent TikTok video, adding, “Your flesh will always want to make the wrong decision.”

“Before Drew and I started dating, I spent time thinking about the physical boundaries I wanted in a relationship because I was dating with the intention of getting married. I knew I wanted to save my first kiss and physical intimacy for my future husband,” Neall tells PEOPLE. “When Drew and I were about to start dating, we had a conversation about these boundaries, and we were both on the same page: We wanted to save our first kiss for to marriage… We didn’t want him to regret crossing physical lines prematurely. .”

For Brown, clear boundaries in their relationship have helped ease “the struggle to maintain physical purity.”

“Maintaining those boundaries has been a journey, and we add new ones if we ever feel like falling into a bad pattern,” she tells PEOPLE. “Kissing is one of those things for us that we’ve just been saving for marriage, like sex.”

While O’Neall and Brown have a “commitment to purity,” they say they don’t shame anyone or expect unrealistic standards from others.

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“A relationship is so much more than physical intimacy. A relationship is loving and choosing someone for the good, the bad and the ugly, not just what you can give them to satisfy them sexually,” O’Neall wrote in the caption from a recent TikTok video. “Yes, physicality is part of it, but it’s not the whole picture. It’s about finding someone who knows your heart, encourages you and your passions, supports you through loss, and chooses you through some of the hardest parts of life. A relationship isn’t about self-serving motivations; it’s about daily, sacrificial love.”

“You deserve to be loved and cherished for all that you are, not just what you can give to someone,” she continued, then added, “Your heart is beautiful, and so is your body, so take care of who do you trust.”

Although not kissing hasn’t been without its struggles, the couple says the decision has positively affected their relationship and made them better people.

“The wait has been worth it. We will be able to experience all the firsts of life together, without comparisons to past experiences,” says O’Neall. “Waiting has also helped me grow in patience and self-control. It has been a constant reminder that with Jesus I can do difficult things.”

Adds Brown, “I feel less selfish in my relationship with her because I know we’re being patient about maintaining that boundary. I’m not just a guy who wants what he wants when he wants it.”

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The couple met in seventh grade at their small private Christian school during a meet and greet for new students. The two confessed their feelings for each other the summer before their junior year of high school in June 2020 and began dating later that school year in January 2021.

In a surprise proposal at Glen Eyrie Castle in Colorado Springs on Oct. 5, Brown got down on one knee and asked O’Neall to marry him.

“As soon as I got out of the car, I saw Drew standing on a bridge holding a single red rose. I knew immediately that he wasn’t supposed to be there and I got emotional,” says O’Neall. who thought he was going to the castle for tea while Brown was away at a football match.

She continues: “As I approached him, both of us crying, he took me for a walk, sharing a timeline of our relationship and how long we’ve known and loved each other: more than eight years of friendship and almost four years. Finally he led me to the base of the castle where there was a path of rose petals and a white blanket knelt down he held out the ring and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him was really the most magical day of my life.”

After O’Neall replied “Yes!” she and Brown returned to her cousin’s house, where both immediate families had flown in to surprise them with a secret engagement party. But the surprise didn’t end there. The next day, they flew home, where they had a second engagement party with all their friends and family from Texas.

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The couple couldn’t be more excited to say “I do” and share their first kiss.

“I’m so excited! I don’t feel nervous at all, just giddy,” O’Neall tells PEOPLE of her upcoming trade. “I don’t think we can have a ‘bad first kiss.’ All we’ve ever wanted to do is honor each other and the Lord through our boundaries. When you love someone deeply and have built a strong emotional connection by really getting to know them, the physical aspect of the relationship is a natural and added blessing.”

Brown says he feels exactly the same and that the kiss is “the gift we’ve been waiting to unwrap.”

“I can’t wait to spend my life with my best friend and really walk in the fullness of marriage, in everything we’ve saved up,” she tells PEOPLE. “I’m in love with her heart, not just her body.”

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Read the original article on People.