Zenoria: ‘The First Thing I Thought Was, God is Faithful,’ When Allan Got Down on One Knee
by Birmingham Times · The Birmingham TimesAllan & Zenoria Pruitt
By Challis Morgan | For the Birmingham Times
Live: Helena
Married: December 1, 2018
Met: “The moment I opened my door and saw his face, I knew he was the man from the dream,” Zenoria Pruitt said of her husband Allan.
Allan and Zenoria met in 2018 after Zenoria told a married co-worker whose character she admired that she wished she could meet a man like him. “I have two brothers,” he told her. “Do you want the crazy one or the holy roller?”
Zenoria, ever a woman of God, picked the holy roller, and after numbers were exchanged and preliminary phone calls went well, she and Allan Pruitt decided to meet for a first date.
Both Zenoria and Allan had given up on dating by the time they’d met one another. She was 44, and he was 38.
“All my dating was horrible. I just left it alone and focused on street evangelism and going out talking to people and ministering in the streets,” Allan said.
“I’m actually planning to turn my dating history into a book,” Zenoria followed up. “It was just that hilarious.”
But in their hearts, they both desired a partner. For Zenoria, it had been almost 20 years since she had had a dream about the man she would marry. She was in her mid-twenties and suicidal.
“I was tired of being depressed and tired of feeling hurt,” she said.
She was alone in a new city, and the loneliness had pervaded every part of her life until one day she sat in her empty apartment, her mind made up.
She had cleaned the place from top to bottom.
“I couldn’t have anyone thinking I kept a nasty house.”
And set the AC to the lowest it would go.
“So I wouldn’t smell,” she explained.
She gripped a bottle of painkillers, prepared to take them all. Sitting there with the pills in her hand, she began praying and crying out to God. She cried herself to sleep.
“I had this dream. I was driving up in a white truck with a man. I could see my wedding ring, and I could see sparkles and rainbows off my wedding ring. I couldn’t see the man’s face. I could see his color, which is my husband’s color. I could see his build, which is my husband’s build. He got out of the truck, swooped around, greeted my mother, hugged her, then came over and helped me out of the truck. And I was pregnant. I felt like I was looking at a movie.”
When Zenoria woke up, she found she had been asleep for more than 24 hours. She put the painkillers away and held on to the promise of that dream for two decades.
Then on that fateful day in 2018 she found herself standing at her doorstep, staring at the man her heart had longed for.
First Date: For their first date, they decided to go to Bone Fish Grill and then to a movie.
“We went to see The Mountain Between Us,” Zenoria said, laughing as she said the title.
Allan rubs his head, and Zenoria starts cackling harder.
“That movie was embarrassing,” Allan said. “That joker [Idris Elba] took his shirt off, and I heard her say ‘Mmm!’”
Zenoria is about to fall out of her chair laughing she’s laughing so hard as Allan shares this story.
Allan and Zenoria play like this for their entire interview with the Birmingham Times. Poking fun at one another, going off on sidebar conversations. Zenoria would often grab her man’s arm and just stare at him, smiling.
The Proposal: The proposal was quiet and personal, like Allan.
“We were in her apartment, sitting there looking at movies; just by ourselves, didn’t have nobody else there, and I just proposed,” Allan said. “I said I want to do this for the rest of my life.”
Zenoria shared that they’d been looking at rings a month or two prior.
“I had gotten it down to two or three rings, and I was like, okay, you pick the moment, the time, etc. I left it alone,” she said. “But after a month or so, I started getting a little antsy.”
Although she was antsy, she said those couple of months of waiting gave her time to do some soul-searching.
“I had been unfortunately engaged three times before him, and I remember at each one of those engagements saying, God, if this is not you, tell me.”
Then, while waiting for the proposal, Zenoria got sick.
“I had the flu or something like that. And he took care of me and my dog at the time. That was actually the biggest turning point in our relationship because my dog was my baby.”
When Allan got down on one knee in her apartment, Zenoria had one thought: “The first thing I thought was, God is faithful.”
She went on to say, “When I tell people that I got married at 45, they’re like, okay. But they don’t understand. You see your friends; friend after friend, sorors, church friends. I was a bridesmaid more than 30 times. And then it’s baby showers and housewarmings. And I have to be happy for that individual. But then I come home, and I’m laid out in tears. I would hear the Holy Spirit say to me, I got you. I got you. But my mind is like, please, even though I trust you, I love you, please don’t leave me. Please, please remember me. And then when he got down on one knee, I was overwhelmed by God’s faithfulness. He didn’t leave me.”
The Wedding: Allan and Zenoria were married on December 1, 2018, with nearly 200 guests in attendance at Heatherwood Country Club (now closed).
“We wanted the works, the huge dress, the tux, the whole ordeal. And we had it,” Zenoria said.
Zenoria walked down the aisle to an instrumental of “Brick House” by the Commodores and then proceeded to dance the night away.
“We danced so much until our hair sweated out,” she recalled.
The Honeymoon: Allan and Zenoria decided to remain celibate until marriage.
“He gained nearly 50 pounds because he was eating all kinds of sweets because we couldn’t have sex,” Zenoria siad with a laugh.
“Yeah, those Debbie cakes were all I had,” Allan said, shaking his head.
The couple decided to honeymoon in Vegas.
“We just wanted to do something stateside because we knew we wouldn’t be going outside much,” Zenoria said.
Words of wisdom: “I tell people to look for the three Ps,” Allan said. “Someone that’ll pray for you, protect you, and provide for you.”
In the seven years since their wedding, Allan and Zenoria have learned how to move as one.
“We’ve had to die to ourselves and die to what we had created when we were single,” Zenoria said. “We’ve had to learn to stick together as a team because those little things can truly, break you apart.”
Happily Ever After: The Pruitts love to travel. Paris, France, Rome, Italy, or even Wilmington, Kentucky, to see a life-size replica of Noah’s ark. If they want to do it, they do it.
“People will tell you. We’re always gone,” Allan said.
But they’re also trying to have a baby.
“We’ve been battling infertility for seven years now. So we’ve tried to have children, and we’ve done the gamut of alphabets except for IVF, which we’re still in the plans for doing IVF,” Zenoria said.
“But what if it doesn’t happen?” Zenoria asked Allan.
“Well then,” he told her. “We’ll adopt, or it’ll just be me and you. And we’ll be traveling all over the world.”
To be considered for a future “You Had Me at Hello” column or to nominate a couple you admire, email editor@birminghamtimes.com with the couple’s names, contact information, and the number of years they’ve been married.