We’re Getting Married!

The story as I remember it began 15 years ago. Our parents were going to a Christian band’s concert at our neighborhood clubhouse. When Scott noticed the Coors Light in the stroller, he bellowed “See honey, his wife let him bring beer!” This led to the first round of laughs (and round of Coors Light) shared between the Dagley and DeRue families. Over the coming 15 years, there would be many, many more to come. Our mom’s appreciated each other’s similar parenting styles, so it didn’t take long for our families to become attached at the hip. Even our last names around the neighborhood became known as the “DagRues”. Even though we were friends growing up, I always just thought of Katie as Brandon’s sister. That said, we are fortunate to share years and years of nostalgia. Building snow forts, sledding at Centennial, that time we played king of the hill on a moving ATV. That time she and I made a “secret hideout” in her closet where we’d roast smarties on a lamp, draw, and giggle. That trampoline that we practically lived on. That bike path that we would race around. That pool where we’d want to spend every Summer day…Just to name a few.

As Brandon and I grew up, we still hung out. Somewhere along the way, we went from playing Mario Kart on our Gameboys to Call of Duty: Nazi Zombies on our Xbox360s. By the time we were in middle school, I started going to Ludington Michigan with the Dagley family. Awesome place. 10/10. Always made good memories. But the trip of my senior year in high school was a bit different from the rest. With all the extra time I got to spend with Katie there, I noticed some butterflies in my stomach. At the time, I was thinking like…uh oh…why am I kinda attracted to my best friend’s sister. I wouldn’t need the photos we took to remember how much I loved her 4th of July outfit. Or how I would hold onto every bit of eye contact for as long as I could. Or how I loved how her face lit up when she laughed. I didn’t act on how I felt right away. But since then, there was a different energy between us. She was an excellent friend at this point, and I just loved being around her. Which was awesome because she’d often come to visit Brandon (and me?) while we roomed together at Purdue. It wouldn’t take long for Katie to become ingrained in our friend group just as when we were kids. Eventually, we gravitated toward each other more. Since we were great friends already, it seemed like we were just on the same wavelength. We were always laughing. I would probably cringe now at how hard I tried to make her laugh. But it worked! It got to the point that we would be texting each other nonstop for weeks with big smiles on our faces. People always knew who I was texting with a big smile on my face. It became clear that we needed to become a couple. But there was that little thing called, 11 years of close close family friendship. The risk of hurting my/our friendship with anyone made us both very nervous. Mustering up the courage to talk to Brandon about this was no small thing. It was probably the most daunting conversation I had had in my life at that point. Brandon was my best friend, and bringing this up was like a point of no return. Brandon was hesitant at first, but I like to think that he could tell how much I already cared for her. The holiday season rolled around, and while we were home, you couldn’t keep us apart. We were a couple of smiley, magnetic, dorks. We had gone to Ikea during the break, and it foreshadowed the beautiful chaos we would create in public for the sake of a good time. Nonstop laughs. At the time, I was somewhat into art, and so I had a ton of picturesque moments pop into my head that I wanted to hold onto forever. Even though I wanted to wait until the holiday season was over to make it official, we were basically dating at that point. After 11 years of knowing each other, I asked Katie to be my girlfriend on December 27, 2018. Lots of red heart emojis thereafter.

Our first date was at a park called Cool Creek. This would be the place we’d go on to hammock approximately 1000 times, have picnics, train our dog, and eventually even get engaged! You may have heard, "distance makes the heart grow fonder"...Well, circumstantially, we invested in that adage heavily. Even days after we started dating, my family took a New Year’s cruise. It was a ton of fun. It was also grueling. The more fun I had, the more I wanted Katie to be a part of it. They charged me $40 bucks just to get WiFi so I could continue doing what I had been doing for the last 10 hours already–Texting my new ✨giiirlfriend ✨. Then we had that whole college thing. While she was back home in Westfield, I was still up at Purdue. Every week was the same…It was a matter of getting through it so I could see Katie again on the weekend. She would come to me, or I would go to her. Sometimes we’d have to go two weeks without seeing each other. That sucked. We continued doing what we did best, texting, video calling, smiling, and laughing. The distance gave me time to be extra thoughtful and my gifts were probably at their best back then 😅. I wrote/illustrated weekly in a book that I’d eventually leather-bind by hand. I also picked out all of her favorite sour patch kids from two family-sized bags and put them in a Katie-edition bag. I was and am just smitten beyond repair. We lived it up on the weekends during the “long-distance” time, but eventually COVID, for all the terrible things it did, really came through for me in terms of getting to see Katie. Classes started going online, and I went home for a while. Now all of a sudden Kates is just 5 doors down from me again! That made it so much easier to continue sharing the same fun and adventures as we did since we were kids.

One such adventure takes the cake though. We went on a two-week trip, 4000 miles out West in my 2005 Infiniti G35 Sedan with a measly $800 budget. When I tell you that this was the most fun trip I could have ever asked for, I very much mean it. It started off with a long beeping noise coming from my car as soon as we get to this sketchy part of Illinois. Maybe the tire is low. We pull over to an air pump, feed it my hard-earned money, and it proceeds to flatten my tire. I swear I tried every button on this thing, but with every attempt, it just stole more air from my tire. Eventually, I talk to a clerk who says, “oh yeah, someone hit that with their car. It’s supposed to be taped up. I can give you half of your money back.” So now my tire went from, this is probably affecting the MPG a bit, to this probably can’t make it across the intersection. We try anyway. Pull up to the air compressor at the next gas station. The nozzle was stolen. Fantastic. We end up buying some cans of compressed air and blew her up just enough to roll a couple of miles to a discount tire, where we would borrow their shop’s pump to get back in working order. As we drove on our merry way, we solemnly passed two more victims at the cursed pump whose tires were so flat they looked like squares. That hiccup aside, we’d go on to stunning parks all across South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. We saw amazing wildlife. Elk, Buffalo, Prairie Dogs, Deer, most so close that we could touch. Monuments. Mountains. We hiked the badlands, Yellowstone, and big sky mountains. We paddle-boarded rivers. We slept at rest stops, campsites, and gas stations. And the whole time, we ate like royalty because Katie happens to be the biggest foodie I know. She absolutely killed it. And in all the time of the trip, none of the obstacles, confusion, or challenges made us turn on each other. We were a happy team through and through. It can’t be understated how valuable a partnership is where you can just roll with the punches and make the most out of it no matter what. The trip opened our eyes to what we were capable of and every part of it is so precious to look back on.

There are a million more stories I could get into, and this site is getting long enough. But I would be remiss if I didn’t give a bit of the spotlight to our fur baby Bentley. When Katie said she wanted a dog, I was hesitant, to say the least. I was thinking that maybe it wasn’t a great time yet. Maybe once we have our own place or more money…We got the dog. It took approximately 5 seconds for that dog to become our new best friend. It was a ton of responsibility to train a puppy, but we think he turned out pretty great. We would take him everywhere we could if we had the chance. Now a big portion of our lives revolves around him and an even bigger portion of our phone’s camera roll. My heart is so full when we are all in one place, and for the year and a half that we’ve had him, that has never gotten old.

If you read all this–You’re a real one. Katie Dagley has been the best thing to ever happen to me. If you’ve had the pleasure of meeting her, you don’t need me to tell you about the life she brings to every situation. She’s down to earth. She’s funny as all get out. She’s passionate about what she does. She cooks a mean southwest chicken sandwich (and everything else). I put a ring on her finger. She said yes. And now we’re so excited to celebrate that with you. I hope this site is helpful in preparing you for our Wedding, and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!