Kurtis and Mac met 6 years ago after the 5pm Mass at Holy Trinity. Mac was the youth minister and Kurtis was being introduced as a potential volunteer. Mac invited him to check out HT's youth ministry, Kurtis surprised her and said yes!

Over the next 5 years Kurtis and Mac became good friends. They spent many nights at their friends Kayde and Joe's house drinking whiskey, playing cribbage and talking about life. They have a large group of friends they love and care about and have spent holidays, birthday parties, celebrations and weddings together. Many times Mac and Kurtis would also hang out one on one. To anyone else, these outings might look like dates, but both would have told you "we are just hanging out, we are just friends." And they really believed this.

Kurtis volunteered on summer trips with youth ministry several times that Mac was leading. In 2018 Mac led a trip of students to Toronto, Canada to a Steubenville Conference. On this trip a rumor started (by their good friend Tim) that they were or should be dating. 2 bus loads of students agreed and were relentless in making this happen. They started calling them 'Murtis' and some believed that they were secretly dating while others thought they should be. At one point, Mac checked in on Kurtis asking “are you OK with these jokes? Obviously it isn't real but I can put an end to it if it makes you uncomfortable.” Kurtis responded with “no it's fine, it's just high school students not getting that we can be just friends!” Again, they really believed they were just friends.

After 5 years of friendship, youth ministry events, many glasses of whiskey, games of cribbage and life, things started to change.

Mac and Kurtis spent his whole birthday together in January of 2022. Their day of disc golf, coffee and dinner was on another 'not a date, date'.

They were conveniently paired up to be Godparents to Kayde and Joe's little girl, Anna (we know what their plan was). That day, Kurtis opened the car door, drove Mac to the celebratory dinner afterwards and the 2 of them sat next to each other loving on and spoiling Anna. Hindsight they both remember flirting and being completely unaware in the moment that they were doing it.

During this time the rumors and comments of the 2 dating started up again. It was a comment by Joe that sparked the conversation that changed things. After another Saturday family dinner with Kayde and Joe and kids, during a game of cribbage, Joe said “would you 2 stop bickering like an old married couple?”

A few days later Kurtis and Mac were eating dinner and playing cribbage and having a great heart to heart talk. Kurtis had a lot of tough questions about life that he asked with such sincerity. Before leaving Mac said she had a tough question for him - Kurtis wondered if he should bring up the topic before she did. In the parking lot of Holy Trinity, Mac asked “all of our friends make comments and think we should be together, what are we missing that they are seeing? Is there any truth behind this?”

This conversation led to them talking every day that week before their first official date. Mac always knew she would end up with her best friend, it should have been clearer sooner. After they started officially dating so many people said “I could always tell he was smitten with her” or “its about time!” or Mac's mom saying “I wondered...”and possibly their favorite, Kayde had been praying for years for the 2 to be together - she was just waiting for them to figure it out on their own. As much as they would have loved to figured their love out sooner, they really are grateful to have gotten together when they did. Once they were together, things moved fast. They spent their first date talking about how many kids and where they would live. “I love yous” coming very soon after they started dating, a road trip to Tulsa, traveling to Minnesota for Easter and talking about engagement after 2 months. Turns out when you have been friends for years, things move a lot faster!

M&K

Wedding Day