Kenzie moved to Ridgewood, NJ in June of 2021 to begin a new position at Bethlehem as their Director of Education. One of her first tasks was to begin assembling a Young Adult ministry, and so she did! Her first event was a Young Adult Hangout, and Ben was one of the 4 attendees. The whole night long they chatted about the movie (The Greatest Showman) and got to know each other quite well. After the event was over, Ben said "You don't need my phone number, you'll get it eventually" and was one of the last to leave. From there, both of their interest piqued.

Every Sunday from then forward, Ben would come to Kenzie's office after Sunday worship and invite her to hang out or go to an event in Hoboken, which she usually declined. One Sunday was different, when Ben and his brother and wife invited Kenzie to join them for sushi. From then on, they became more intentional about finding time to hang out together. They both put together a handful of plans to hangout that never came to be... until Kenzie invited Ben to join her at the Ridgewood Car Show where she was volunteering for the evening. Ben met Kenzie there (after almost ditching because he wanted to go to the Apple Store), and they visited a local restaurant and watched a few episodes of Bob's Burgers at her apartment. They laughed together until the early hours of the morning and decided there was something worth exploring together.

Ben and Kenzie had hung out a few times in Ridgewood and other local breweries before Ben asked Kenzie to go on an official date. They visited Café 37 in Ridgewood, and Ben put the whole thing together, reservations, wine and all. Kenzie bought a brand new outfit and spent the whole day worrying about the complications of dating her coworker's brother. Needless to say, it went pretty well and it became the beginning of our beautiful story together.

On our one year anniversary at Drowned Lands Brewery in Warwick, NY, Ben asked Kenzie to marry him.

Eventually, she said yes, but only after looking at him puzzled for a while and saying "that's not real" (This is a perfect representation of our relationship).

We love our engagement story and think it's one worth telling, even if it isn't perfectly polished!

Here's the story (and we're sticking to it!):

Sunday, October 9th 2022 was a normal day. Kenzie had to work at church in the morning and afterwards they were going with Ben's family and friends to an apple orchard in Warwick, NY to tailgate and pick apples. Before meeting up with everybody, Ben had planned to stop by Pennings Orchard to enjoy a cider and recreate our very first photo taken together. Well..... the lines were too long and Ben ended up just using their restroom and we left. After some mutual disappointment, they went and found the group to go and pick apples. There were a few times that Ben was pulled away, but Kenzie thought nothing of it and remained calm and seated in her camping chair with a Yeti full of fireball and cider. The event came to an end, and Ben offered to go to their favorite place, Drowned Lands, but they were closing soon, and as a good Midwesterner, Kenzie did not want to be "those people", so she politely declined. Ben replied and said something to the effect of "Well, I need to go to the bathroom, so we're going". So they went. Ben *did* go to the restroom and Kenzie ordered a beer, and when Ben returned something was different. The stress and tiredness of not having our cider at Pennings and a long day in the sun melted away. Ben asked to go on a walk together, and Kenzie didn't want to be the last people at the brewery, so they settled on "the long way" to the car. Kenzie was walking ahead of Ben when he said "Can you come here for a second?" and pulled out the most beautiful ring and got on one knee. Kenzie, being herself and lacking elegance, said "Shut up, that's not real!!!!" about 100 times until Ben said "I think you have to say yes for it to be official".

Of course, the answer was and will always be yes.