We are a match.com success story (said with a comical tone). I (Kelsi) moved to Denver in December of 2015 and as a single lady in the city, I decided to sign up for online dating to get out there and meet new people. Had a few truly awful dates but then in February 2016 I was in a car accident and ended up laid up while my leg healed from surgery. I had completely forgotten that I even signed up for online dating and about a month into my recovery (when the painkiller fog had worn off) I remembered. I figured, well, I'm laid up so I might as well chat with people. Alex had messaged me a week or two before I saw his message and he tells me that I was his last message as he hadn't had any luck and had deactivated his account. I find his message after his account is already shut down but I didn't know that, so I replied. He got the notice that he had a message and reactivated it when he saw I was replying to him. Alex was amazing with the fact that I couldn't get out and meet him when I explained that my right leg had been messed up in the accident. At the time he worked nights and had a schedule of 2 weeks on and 1 week off...which as I learned was a major turn-off to a lot of other people. Lucky for him...I had all the time in the world for weird schedules since I was laid up. Our "dates" were unconventional, to say the least, because they were phone calls. We were able to get to know each other on a whole different level because we "dated" that way for a month before we met in person.

On our first in-person date Alex chose to meet me at Barnes & Noble so he could buy me a book or puzzle to keep me entertained while I was home healing. My sister drove me to the bookstore and waited in the parking lot where she could keep an eye on me in case he was a weirdo (sorry Alex). She hung out for an hour or so until she swapped shifts with my brother-in-law on the "Kelsi watch" and he came to pick up when it was over. During our first real date, we learned that our paths had definitely crossed before but we never knew it. Alex grew up in a small town called Wray, CO which is only an hour away from where I grew in Bird City, KS. As we preceded to dig into more of our lives and where he had lived, etc. we found out that we had both lived in Denver previously at the same time and we both had the same favorite bar and knew the same bartenders. He also mentioned that he used to go to Big Ed's Steakhouse in Bird City with a group of friends to eat on weekends and at that time my dad was the cook at the restaurant and I was at the restaurant all the time growing up.

We got engaged on December 14, 2019, and we had planned a little holiday party with friends and little did me and our friends know, this was actually a surprise engagement party. Our day was pretty busy getting ready for the party with cleaning and making food. Alex had a great poker face all day long, I didn't once know anything was going to happen. We got ready for our guests and we were putting last-minute things together for everyone to show up and all of a sudden Alex says "I need to ask you something before everyone gets here," and I didn't think anything into that. He drops to one knee and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him. It was absolutely perfect... it was just us together in our home.

We had been planning our wedding for 2020 but as with most things, COVID derailed that plan. We talked about putting it off for a couple of years but we decided we really didn't want to wait any longer. We will be self solemnizing our marriage certificate at Union Station on March 10, 2021. We do plan to have a reception later on down the road when our guests can celebrate with us, hopefully, mask-free, and safely.