Engaged Couple Have Never Kissed, Saving Moment for Wedding Day: 'Present We’ve Waited to Unwrap' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Drew Brown and Kaytlin O’Neall.Photo:Megan Summers, Instagram: @kaytlin.oneall @drew.d.brown

Megan Summers, Instagram: @kaytlin.oneall @drew.d.brown

Until they hear the words “You may kiss the bride,” one engaged couple is refusing to lock lips.

Kaytlin O’Neall and Drew Brown, both 21, have been in a relationship for almost four years, but have never kissed. When O’Neall wrote “Disclaimer!!! You don’t have to kiss to get a ring 💍,” in aTikTok videoof their 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 no-kiss choice.

Drew Brown and Kaytlin O’Neall.Megan Summers, Instagram: @kaytlin.oneall @drew.d.brown

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

In the video, O’Neall listed common responses she gets when people learn of her relationship dynamics, including: “For real!?!??!” “That must take some self-control!!!” “You know you can just kiss, it’s not the end of the world!” “WHY!?!??” “OK but what else do y’all do?” and “Come on DO IT!!”

Despite outside pressure, O’Neall and Brown are sticking to their rule. The non-denominational Christians have clarified in other TikTok videos that “toxic purity culture” is not the reason they’ve saved their first kiss for their wedding day, nor have they been “brainwashed” or forced into this boundary from anyone in their religious circle. “It is truly because we have felt this conviction from the Lord,” O’Neall said ina recent TikTok video, adding, “Your flesh is always going to want to make the wrong choice.”

“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 intent of marriage. I knew I wanted to save my first kiss and physical intimacy for my future husband,” O’Neall explains to PEOPLE. “When Drew and I were about to begin dating, we had a conversation about these boundaries, and we were both on the same page — we wanted to save our first kiss for marriage … We didn’t want any regrets from crossing physical lines prematurely.”

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

Kaytlin O’Neall and Drew Brown.Megan Summers, Instagram: @kaytlin.oneall @drew.d.brown

“Keeping those boundaries has been a journey, and we add new ones if we ever feel ourselves wanting to fall into a bad pattern," he tells PEOPLE. “Kissing is one of those things for us that we have simply 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.

“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 ofa recent TikTok video. “Yes, physicality is a part, but it’s not the whole picture. It’s about finding someone who knows your heart, encourages you and your passions, supports you in the midst of loss, and chooses you through some of the hardest parts of life. A relationship is not about self-serving motivations; it’s about sacrificial, daily love.”

“You deserve to be loved and cherished for everything you are, not just for what you can give someone,” she continued, later adding, “Your heart is precious, and so is your body, so be careful with who you entrust it to.”

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

“The waiting has been worth it. We’ll be able to experience all of life’s firsts 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 hard things.”

Brown adds, “I feel less selfish in my relationship with her because I know that we’re being patient to uphold this boundary. I’m not just a guy who wants what he wants whenever he wants it.”

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

In a surprise proposal at Glen Eyrie Castle in Colorado Springs on Oct. 5, Brown got 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 was overcome with emotion,” says O’Neall, who thought she was going to the castle for high tea while Brown was away at a football game.

She continues, “As I walked over to him, both of us crying, he took me on a walk, sharing a timeline of our relationship and how long we’ve known and loved each other — over eight years of friendship and almost four years of dating. Finally, he led me to the base of the castle, where there was a path of rose petals and a white blanket laid out. He got down on one knee, held out the ring, and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him. It was truly the most magical day of my life.”

After O’Neall answered “Yes!” she and Brown headed back to his cousin’s house, where both of their 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 back home where they were met with a second engagement party with all of their Texas friends and family.

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

Brown says he feels exactly the same and that the kiss is “the present we’ve waited to unwrap.”

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

source: people.com