I first met Hayden about thirteen years ago through mutual friends. My friend Jessica and I went over to our friend Alyssa’s house for a movie night where Alyssa’s younger brothers also had some friends over; one of them being Hayden. The crew ended up hanging out together, playing games and watching movies. After one too many scary movies, Hayden and I ended up holding hands on the couch, where I ended up falling asleep! You can imagine Hayden (a young wide-eyed 14-year-old holding the hand of an older woman of two years- very big moment in his life!)
After that night, we stayed mutual friends at school, and followed each other on a social media app known as Snapchat over the next many years. In March 2020, I received a message on Snapchat from Hayden asking how I was doing. Naturally, in true Katie fashion, I panicked and texted my friends Jessica and Sam, “Wow I just received a message from HAYDEN KESSLER, I haven’t talked to him in forever.” I responded, and we talked for awhile, catching up with each other, and then we slowly lost touch. We ended up chatting again in May, when our mutual friends Helen and Triston were getting married and I wondered how he knew Helen (Helen and I grew up dancing together) and Hayden wondered how I knew Triston (a good friend of his).
After this, Hayden decided to shoot his shot and ask me to go on a date. After 10 years of not seeing each other, we looked much different! And might I add, looked much different in a good way- I hardly recognized the handsome brace-less, 6-foot man who was in front of me when we met for coffee at a local Starbucks! Coffee was a hit, so we ended up going out to a late dinner afterwards. We lost track of time and had around a 6 hour first date...I remember my mom texting me asking if I was ever coming back home. Slowly and steady we began to go on weekly dates, which turned into twice weekly dates and then more, so we decided to take a leap of faith and officially label ourselves as boyfriend and girlfriend. In COVID time as I like to call it, there was not much to do besides go out to dinner outside, go for a hike, or to each others houses (where we both still lived with our parents), so much to my dismay, Hayden got the pleasure of meeting my parents very early into our relationship. Lucky for me (and for Marty & Marcie!) Hayden decided to stick around. Stick around so much so that he decided to propose to me about 14 months after we started dating in Breckenridge. While we were there, Hayden kept insisting that we HAD to see the pretty leaves since that is what I like to do. I should have been more skeptical since the leaves had really already fallen for the season, but I was just happy Hayden wanted to take me to see what was left of the leaves.
There isn’t much else to say from that point to where we are today. Everything has gone so easy with Hayden, we get along great, we compliment each others personalities, and I truly believe we were meant to be brought back together into each others life. I always joke with Hayden that he just could never get over the time we held hands many years ago, which may be true, though, whatever the reason may be, I am so thankful he decided to walk back into my life. We are so excited to get married, and continue this journey of life together as Mr. & Mrs. Kessler!