Christina was working at a restaurant when she and Kyle were introduced by his cousin, whom Christina had previously worked with. After work, she invited the two to go for drinks, and Christina thought she wouldn’t soon see Kyle again, but then she found his phone in her car. “Which I say he did on purpose,” Christina says. “Yes, I did,” Kyle says.

Right away, they were spending all their time together, hanging out almost every day. “It just sparked into a relationship really quickly,” Christina says. “At first I didn’t think he was someone who would be into me. So, the fact that he was giving me all his attention—I loved it.” They spent time together going on drives, usually out of town. “We just loved [taking] spontaneous trips when we had several days off, and [we would] go to the aquarium or the beach,” Christina says.

In 2017, they took an extra special trip to the beach: Hawaii. Kyle had secretly bought a ring and brought it with him. “We were at the local swimming spot and it started to rain,” Kyle says. “I asked her to get out of the water and when she ran up, that’s when I did it.” 

Although they had discussed getting married, Christina was totally stunned that he was asking her then and there. She asked him, “Are you serious?  Are you kidding me?” Kyle assured her that he was serious and was not kidding. Kyle says that he had thought about marrying Christina, “pretty much since the moment I met her.” When he proposed, he had a feeling she would say yes, but, “I still felt really nervous. Afterward it just felt surreal.”

Over two years of planning Christina put the wedding together. Her two best friends helped with signage and bridal party tasks, but other than that, she did everything. She made sure to check with Kyle to see if he agreed with her decisions. “After all,” she says, “it’s not just about the bride.”

“Yes, it is,” Kyle says. “I just knew I wanted to marry her, I didn’t care about the details.”  While she was working on the wedding Kyle would tell her, “I’ll marry you right now, we don’t need to have this wedding.”

On the day of the wedding, while Kyle felt he couldn’t breathe, and was sweating and trembling, Christina was panicked at walking down the aisle with all the guests watching. Once she got to Kyle at the altar, Christina says, it was like, “This is real; and it was exciting.” Once they were together they both calmed down. “I definitely wanted that moment, and I wanted those memories,” Christina says. “It was stressful, but I’m so happy we did it.” 

—Margaret Snider