Propcellar

Wedding Day

Mingle

Ceremony

Reception

Welcome to our wedding website! RSVP below and check our our registry by clicking "Registry" above. Thanks! Please avoid wearing cologne/fragrance to make this wedding great for those with allergies (including Kevin!) Parking at the venue is limited. Please park in nearby lots if you are able and/or carpool or rideshare where possible. Thank you!

Our Wedding

Matty covers the big picture.

We met in the middle of our senior year at the University of Memphis. I was heading to the Educators Career Fair on the third floor of the UC dressed in my navy blue suit. Later, Kevin will admit that it was the suit that initially caught his eye. We had a conversation outside the elevators that mostly consisted of small talk. I had arrived early to the event and didn’t mind meeting someone new. During the whole conversation, however, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew him. In fact, when I think back on that memory, I mostly remember spending the whole conversation trying to figure out where I knew him from. Had I seen him before in the dorms? Was he just a familiar face on campus?

Eventually, Kevin told me that we were in the same Harry Potter Honors Forum class our freshmen year. No, we don’t have the movie-perfect romance where we locked eyes on each other and fell in love that first day of class freshman year. We had that class, and we didn’t really interact all that much.&nbsp; It was that evening on the third floor in the UC that we claim as our official meeting place. I told him that I was looking to become a teacher, and he said that he was too. I was studying to teach English as an Additional language, and Kevin was studying music education. We had our conversation and went our separate ways that night, but he stayed in my mind until I eventually reached out the next day.&nbsp; I met Kevin during a completely difficult part of my life. My mom had passed away the previous month, that October of 2017. Kevin and I met in November. I was not looking for a relationship. I was just trying to feel normal, going to career fairs my senior year to remind myself that a future awaited me. Looking to find a potential employer that night, I would instead find the person with who I want to spend the rest of my life. That day, meeting Kevin reminded me that the world keeps moving forward. My mother’s death didn’t have to bring my senior year to a screeching halt even if that’s what it felt like. Life was giving me something new, reminding me that possibilities were still out there.&nbsp;

We messaged each other and eventually went on our first date. Thor Ragnarok. Malco Paradiso. Kevin was unlike any other boy I had gone out with before. He was polite but wasn’t the first one to speak up. That first date, I was just trying to figure out if he was into guys or not. I overanalyzed every move made. Okay, we bought our own tickets but he sat in the seat next to me. We went to see a Marvel movie but Chris Hemsworth is the lead. Frankly, our messages were a little vague when it came to the intent of our first hang out. Guys before had been more forward. Kevin was not that.&nbsp; What I love about Kevin is that it wasn’t about that at all. At first, we were getting to know one another. We were learning all of our similarities and differences. We talked careers, college experiences, and (of course) Harry Potter.&nbsp; The greatest first date question of all time is: Who is your favorite Harry Potter character? If their answer is Dolores Umbridge, run away. Luckily, Kevin’s answer was objectively correct: Luna Lovegood.&nbsp; After that first date, we kept texting and ended up hanging out more and more. I would go in with a plan to try to hold his hand or kiss him at the end of the night, and I failed every time. Something about Kevin made me nervous which was a new feeling for me. What we had felt different, and I didn’t want to mess it up.&nbsp; As it goes, Kevin and I eventually started dating two months later. It was confirmed through eventually making my move that he was into guys after all. We officially became boyfriends on January 20th, 2018. Looking back, it’s hard to think of a time without Kevin in my life. We have been through so much together now. I continued to grapple with the grief that I was working through. I wrote my thesis. He completed edTPA. We graduated from the UofM. I completed my masters program through the Memphis Teacher Residency. Kevin got his teaching job at Maxine Smith STEAM academy. I then got my teaching license and masters and got my first official teaching job. We each began to know our families and friends more and more. We moved in together. Adopted a dog and became very ridiculous dog dads. Two years and a few months in, we realized that neither of us were going anywhere. We were a team, partners, friends. I didn’t want to do anything with my life that didn’t involve Kevin Carpenter.

He is the love of my life. I love him because we laugh together constantly. We cry. We sing. We dance. We can sit for hours next two each other watching Bon Appetit videos and looking at memes. I love doing the every day with him. Rearranging furniture. Making podcasts. Creating Virtual Choir Videos. Editing Book drafts. Playing hours of Animal Crossing and Minecraft. It may seem mundane, but I think it’s love in its purest form. This is who I chose to spend my life with everyday. And everyday, Kevin choses me too. I hope Kevin and I are a reminder to everyone that love is love is love is love is love.&nbsp; I love you, Kevin Carpenter. I can’t wait to call you my Husband.

Kevin captures the little moments.

Because Matty covered the big picture, I just want to hit on a few moments. Matty got the big picture beautifully, but when zooming in on anyone’s story, you’ll see the little details that make for some of the best memories. •		Our second date: 2017’s Power Rangers movie.•		Matty showing me all the Memphis spots I’d never seen before.•		Me wishing Matty was not living in those gross townhomes. At least they weren’t lime green then.•		Matty wishing I wasn’t living in that wannabe horror movie mansion in East Memphis.•		The first time we really looked into each other's eyes.•		The very first “Mr. Carpenterrrr!!”, heard from a distance while on a date (Zoo Lights).•		Matty asking me to be his boyfriend.•		Meeting Matty’s family for the first time.•		Matty meeting my family for the first time.•		A trip to the beach (“414”!), featuring everyone’s favorite pullout mattress.•		Proofreading Matty’s breathtaking book and less-breathtaking professional emails.•		The first huge Halloween party.•		The second huge Halloween party.•		The third very small, safely distanced Halloween party.•		Parading through Manhattan with Matty (and Joseph and Elizabeth!) at World Pride.•		Our one-year-of-dating anniversary at Flight where we ate and drank too much.•		Matty’s perseverance through the very fast Master of Urban Education Degree. This is just a slice of the abundance of little moments that bring us together and make us, well, us. It’s been a great few years of memories, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of life’s memories have in store for us!

Our Story

Travel

Things to Do

Madelyn McKissack

Hailey Coleman

Marie Fong

Peyton Pilgrim

Victoria Hoffman

Katie Hook

Wedding Party

Photos

Registry

A Proposal - June 15th, 2020

Today is June 30th, 2020, and I am here to announce to the world that I want to spend the rest of my life with the one and only Kevin Carpenter. One year ago, Kevin and I were in New York City marching in the Pride parade to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. We both agreed that it was only fitting that a year later we made our engagement official and shouted it to the virtual world. This engagement was not a surprise for us. We were in the thick of quarantine, and one day we laid it all out on the table. We talked about where we wanted to be in five years (and ten years), our beliefs about raising children, if we ever wanted children. We followed a guided question activity that was posted online - as two great educators do. The first question asked, “what does marriage mean to you?” Out of all the questions, that one stumped me the most - yes even more than the children question. Marriage was never something that I thought was realistic for me while growing up. I knew that I was gay, but that wasn’t talked about openly or celebrated. It wasn’t until after my freshman year in college that marriage was even legalized for gay couples. Love and marriage seemed like far off ideas on an unreachable island. Marriage was for men and women who fit the criteria, and I did not make the cut. &nbsp;In an unhealthier time, I might have said that marriage is finding and committing to your other half, but I don’t believe that anymore. Finding Kevin helped me realize just how whole I am. Our marriage is a celebration of love &amp; friendship. We are two people who found each other and said “I want to experience this life with you every day.”. But while this marriage is about the future, it is also about right now. It’s about sipping on coffee in the morning and falling asleep to documentaries. It’s about taking Rupert on walks and supporting each other’s passions. Our marriage is inviting the people in our life to celebrate our love with us. Kevin entered my life during one of my darkest moments. He was there to remind me that there was still a life to live for and chase after. He did not complete me, but he pulled me out of the darkness. He became a friend to laugh with, a shoulder to cry on. He reminded me that there were a million reasons to smile. There were reasons to keep going. When I was eighteen heading towards graduation, I read a book titled “The Realm of Possibility”. The book featured two boys, at the end of their high school years, proposing to one another. At the time I was reading it, that representation was rare. Even though the odds were stacked against these two boys (even though there were people around them telling them that somehow their love was lesser than, invalid) they found one another. They were brave enough to stand against the world and say that their love was valid. In the final chapter, the book reads, “Here’s what I know about the realm of possibility—it is always expanding, it is never what you think it is.” I didn’t expect Kevin. I wasn’t waiting around for Kevin to arrive. In the most cliche way, he was there when I least expected him to be. We ran into each other on the University of Memphis campus during our Senior year. I was in a navy blue suit that Kevin has repeatedly told me is what caught his eye initially -&nbsp;so thank God for that suit. I was on my way to a teacher career fair, and we talked about our aspirations to become educators in our respective content areas. It could have been any other quick conversation in the UC.&nbsp;It could have been like bumping into any other person that we had a class with, but it wasn’t. Against the odds, we chose to try, to push past what we considered to be our realms of possibility, and I am so glad we did. If you told eighteen year old&nbsp;Matty with a copy of&nbsp;“Realm of Possibility” in his hands that he would find the love of his life in a Harry Potter class on the UofM campus, he would have said that half of that sounds believable . You would prove him wrong. Fast forward two and a half years. On the evening of June 15th, 2020, Kevin asked me to go inside to grab the current books we were reading. We recently did up our backyard, and it has since become our own personal vacation getaway for this travel-free summer. Freshly-potted flowers and dangling backyard lights surrounded us. When I brought the books back outside, he was standing&nbsp;under the lights. He looked incredibly handsome. He asked me to put the books down, and I did. He grabbed my hands and told me that he loved me. He told me that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. He asked me if I would marry him. I got his ring and asked him the same question. A quote on the rings: “... I found the claddagh,The two hands, the heart,And I knew there was no better wayTo say what I meant to sayAbout what he meant to me.I wasn’t thinking of marriage, just commitment.I wasn’t thinking of forever, just reveling in now.” We ordered each other a claddagh ring side by side, representing the love, friendship, and loyalty we share with one another. I wasn’t thinking of marriage or forever or tradition. I was thinking of you and how often you make me laugh. I was thinking of waking up with you and sleeping in. I was thinking of rearranging furniture with you and reading books in our backyard. I was thinking of hosting Oscar parties and brunch. I was thinking of how love was nothing that I thought it was and everything that I wanted. I am so happy to love you and be loved by you, Kevin Carpenter. Welcome to my realm of possibility. Remember, it is always changing, and I&nbsp;can’t wait to see where it takes us. &nbsp;I can’t wait to go there with you. I love you, Matty Bailey.

Kevin & Matty

Kevin & Matty

Registry