Newly engaged Wichita teacher pops sweet wedding question to class in viral TikTok video
Earlier this week, Alexandra Stamps had a sweet proposal for her fifth-grade class:
Will you be a part of my wedding?
The McLean Science and Technology Magnet Elementary School teacher is getting married to fiancé Mason McDowell in July. After nearly a year of dating, McDowell proposed to her on Saturday.
Immediately Stamps knew she wanted the kids she’s been teaching this academic year to be involved in their ceremony. McDowell did, too.
“I love them and they’re part of my life. I want them to be up there with me because they’re my biggest fans,” she said in an interview Wednesday.
In a darling gesture that not only drew out delighted squeals from her pack of 10- and 11-year-old students but is also quickly gaining her some Internet fame, Stamps on Monday asked the kids to be her junior bridesmaids and groomsmen.
A video of the proposal and the children’s reactions Stamps posted on TikTok already had more than 10 million views, 3 million likes and 20,000 comments by Wednesday evening.
In it, Stamps tells viewers, “I’m about to ask my students to be part of my wedding,” as Kina Grannis’ cover of the Elvis Presley ballad “Can’t Help Falling in Love” plays in the background.
The video then cuts to her standing in front of her classroom.
“Okay, so I have a really important question to ask you guys,” she tells her students..
“What is it?” a small, curious voice chimes back.
“Khloe, Mary, Reagan, Angelina, Esmeralda, Lucy, Lily, Bella, Harley – will you guys be my junior bridesmaids in my wedding?” she asks.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” the girls squeal.
Stamps turns her attention to the boys next, with similar results.
“Bryland, Max, Eric, Emilio, Kayden, Will, Conner, Jessie, Jose and Sebastian – will you guys be my junior groomsmen?”
When the camera turns on the students, they’re cheering and jumping with joy. Some are even sobbing.
“I had like six or seven kids that were crying real tears when I asked,” she said in the interview.
“It was super fun.”
Stamps said she didn’t know the video would draw so much attention. She’s already had a week that’s kept her busy with center stage moments, including the engagement and winning one of the Wichita Public Schools’ Distinguished Classroom Teacher awards.
“I thought, like, my friends would see it” and maybe the small number of teachers who follow the TikTok account she started at the beginning of the academic year to connect with her students and share cute classroom videos and teaching tips, Stamps said.
“But I had no idea that it would blow up like this.”
Stamps said after McDowell, who is also a first-year teacher in Wichita, proposed, the couple kicked around ideas for how to get their students involved in the wedding.
The 23-year-olds met last March at the Wichita USD 259 Interview Fair while vying for the same teaching position, which McDowell eventually got. Their first conversation, about the smell of barbecue wafting through the building as they waited to talk to the same school principal, turned into exchanging phone numbers and text messages.
“I usually don’t give my number to guys that I just meet,” Stamps said. “But I thought he was really cute.”
Eventually, “we realized that we liked each other without saying it and he asked if we could spend time together.”
But for a long time after that, the pandemic made Stamps hesitant to meet up with McDowell in person.
She finally relented, with the condition that their activity, a walk in a west Wichita park that would last 14 miles, be outdoors. They officially started dating on March 7, 2020.
On Saturday, McDowell knelt down and asked Stamps to be his wife in the same park near 135th and Maple where their first date took place.
After the proposal and dinner at a local restaurant, talk turned to their students.
Stamps said she was the one who came up with the idea of having her 19 fifth-graders and McDowell’s 18 third-graders be part of their bridal party.
“We spend over 40 hours a week with them, and we both really love our students so much. And so I thought it would be kind of fun to include them in the festivities instead of just having them in the audience.”
Stamps said she checked in with a few of her student’s parents, who she says loved the idea.
She even posted a TikTok video announcing her plans — which included giving the girls faux pearl necklaces and the boys colorful sunglasses — the day before she popped the question to her class. Everyone also got rainbow-striped lollipops.
Stamps proposed to her class immediately on Monday, she said, because some of her students had already heard about her engagement from their moms, who saw the news on Facebook.
“I didn’t want to wait any longer. I just wanted to ask them like the first day,” Stamps said.
McDowell asked his class at Earhart Environmental Magnet Elementary School to be junior bridesmaids and groomsmen on Wednesday.
He filmed his proposal and sent it to Stamps for fun, but he doesn’t have his own TikTok account to post it on, she said.
Still, Stamps said his kids were equally excited.
So will we see video of her elementary-aged wedding party on TikTok in July?
Stamps isn’t sure yet. She’s still working out the details.
“I was assuming that I wouldn’t be on my phone at all at my wedding. So I think if I did that, I would probably hire someone to just take videos” that could be posted after her honeymoon, she said.
But, she says her vision is to have the students follow the adult members of her bridal party down the aisle then “stand next to us” as she and McDowell exchange their vows.
“I just want to give them this special part of my life. I want them to be part of it because I’m so proud of the hard work that they’ve done this year, and the fact that they’ve not only survived the pandemic — but thrived in it — and watching them grow as people this school year, they deserve to be up there with me.”
This story was originally published April 22, 2021 at 4:49 AM.
