Let's Finally Do This Thing!

Tim was working at the Citgo station that Krista frequented. They made small talk for months, and the spark was there, but no moves were made. One night, Krista stopped in wearing a tinfoil hat, looking for a flashlight and bug spray. When Tim asked what she was doing, she said "alien hunting, obviously!". Tim describes this as the moment he knew he had to have her, but still, no moves were made until one fateful day a couple months later: Krista pulled into the gas station, business as usual, when her father peeled into the parking lot after her where an argument ensued. (Krista was performing at Twin River in RI, but her phone wouldn't turn on so she had no GPS or way of calling anyone. Her dad is very safety-conscious and was trying to get her to take his phone.) Brennans are very animated in their disagreements, so when Tim looked outside and saw a man arguing with the alien hunter he fancied, he went into knight in shining armor mode and came outside. Long story short, the first words that Krista's dad ever said to Tim were not kind, and Krista, in a whirlwind of social awkwardness, hopped in her car and took off, leaving the gas she paid for behind. When she got to RI, she learned the show had been cancelled. The other comics asked her to go out for the night, but in a rare moment, she turned them down as she had class the next day. Because the show was cancelled and she didn't go out, she got back into the area before Citgo closed, where Tim happened to be outside. After an internal argument with herself (which had her stopping and going in front of Citgo, looking like an erratic driver to Tim), she decided to pull in and apologize to him for the scene earlier. Tim hit Krista with the super smooth line: "So, do you have a phone? Cause I have a phone. Maybe my phone could call your phone sometime?" A move was finally made! Apparently all it took was a familial argument in public.

As Tim turned around triumphantly with Krista's phone number, she saw the back of him for the first time. That's when she saw IT. "IT" being a rat tail. While Tim was sweet, funny and wonderful (with a great butt), a rat tail is a giant dealbreaker. She decided to ghost him. Knowing that he worked 3-11, she decided to make her normal Citgo stop at 1:00 the next day. In the 4 years that Tim worked at that station, he worked early twice. This was one of those times. She decided to just avoid eye contact, get in line, smile and nod and then just find a new gas station altogether. Tim happened to take his hat off and push his hair back while a customer was getting money out of their wallet. Krista yelled "Oh my god! It's a mohawk! It's not a rat tail!" When she got up to him in line, she explained the misunderstanding and how under his hat, his flaccid mohawk looked like a rat tail. Tim said he couldn't blame her for her plans to ghost him. They laughed it off, and he asked her if she'd like to join him for karaoke that night across the street. They sung their hearts out together in an amazing first date. That date and the thousands that followed have been amazing, so here we are. If the phone didn't break, if Krista and her dad didn't get into an argument, if the show hadn't been cancelled, if Krista had gone out that night, if Tim hadn't been outside, if he wasn't working early, and if he didn't take his hat off at the right moment, that first date may have never happened. We like to think that fate finds a way. Oh, and Krista's dad LOVES Tim now. When they officially met, he told him that any man who would stand up for his daughter is a great man in his book.

Krista was stuck in the hospital Valentines Day 2018, and while she had Tim by her side, it wasn't exactly romantic. Tim told her he wanted to make up for 2018 in 2019 so he had an extra special day planned for Saturday 2/16/19. He called it the "Lyle Mystery Ride". When Tim was a kid, his parents used to load the kids and go on mystery rides, and he was taking inspiration from those happy times. He gave Krista absolutely no hints on where they were going. He wouldn't even tell her what she should wear, so she packed a big bag with every type of shoe she could possibly need along with 4 different outfits. Tim took Krista to all their special places - where they had their first date, their first kiss, to their favorite spot on Salisbury Beach and to the rose garden at Lynch Park. Tim is always super romantic, so none of this seemed odd to Krista. Towards the evening, Tim told Krista he needed to blindfold her for the next surprise. As he was driving, Krista was guessing what they were doing. She thought for sure she was getting a new pet. She was not a huge fan of the blindfold, even yelling to Tim "I don't like this Birdbox BS!" He walked her into a building (Concord Rod & Gun where his dad is a member) and told her she could take her blindfold off. She stood at a closed door which he told her to open. When she opened the door, she was greeted by the yell of SURPRISE by a bunch of their friends and family. As she looked on in shock saying "Surprise what? Is this for my birthday? What is happening?", Tim was behind her on one knee. Video: https://www.instagram.com/p/BuFqk4FA1xh/ Fun fact: The party was supposed to be after a private proposal at the Old North Bridge, but due to the government shutdown, Tim could no longer use the bridge so he decided to propose AT the party. Krista loved being able to share that moment with people she loves, so it worked out perfect.

You all know we've had to reschedule this thing, change it, postpone it, cancel it, reschedule it, and change it some more. For those who don't know the whole scoop and want some insider info, get some tea and read on through the timeline of madness: Feb 2019 - engaged, excited and blissfully unaware of how difficult it would be to plan this thing Mar 2019 - we chose 10/10/20 as it was only 4 days after our anniversary, it’s a cool mathematical date, and it gives us plenty of time to save money and plan. We immediately booked the rose garden at Lynch Park (Krista’s special place since childhood, and now a very special place to Tim too) and a banquet hall nearby. We were pretty proud of ourselves for getting that done so far ahead of time as we knew 10/10 would be a popular date. April/May/Jun 2019 - booked photo/video, catering etc. Jun 2019 - the guy who runs bookings at the banquet hall called and said “oops, I double booked. I’m so sorry, I already promised that date to someone else before you guys”. The contract we had is certainly more binding than some verbal promise, and he recognized this. He said he felt so bad he would give us any other Sat in October for FREE, stating he’d even give us our deposit back. We like free more than we cared about 10/10, so we called the rose garden and other vendors to ensure they could all do 10/3. They could! Crisis averted, and hey we saved some money! We called him back to move the date to 10/3 and asked for a new contract with the new date, stating all is paid in full. He said “you’re not paid in full, I only have a deposit, you owe this much, and actually you’ll need another bartender so it’s <even more than original agreement” We reminded him of how HE messed up and offered the new date for free as a consolation, stating he could keep the deposit and we’d pay for another bartender, but we’re not paying the rest especially considering he said he’d give us the deposit back in the first place. He refused, things got heated, we told him we wanted to cancel altogether. With the way things were going, we’d show up for our wedding reception and there’d be a ping pong tournament going on or something. He was so disorganized. We asked when would be a good time to come in and get the deposit back and he had the audacity to say “you signed a contract, you don’t get your deposit back”. We brought the obvious to his attention - we signed a contract for 10/10 which he can’t fulfill, so he’s the one who broke the contract, not us. The fight with him went on for about a month before he finally gave in and gave us our money back. NIGHTMARE. Jul 2019 - We began the search for a new reception location, and came across Vittori Rocci Post. The guy in charge was super nice and had us come right in for a tour. During our chat with him he asked why we chose Beverly since we lived in Ayer. We explained how Krista’s grandparents lived here so she spent most of her childhood here and has a lot of special memories, getting married at the rose garden which is a super sentimental place etc. He asked who Krista’s grandparents were as he lived his whole life in Beverly as well. Turns out he knew them and used to golf with Krista’s Popeye! He looked at her and said “OH MY GOD. YOU’RE BUNNY! I met you when you were little!” He called his partner over and said “Guess who this is? Ray and Celeste’s little Bunny!” (Bunny is Krista’s family nickname) We knew right then it was fate, and we chose the perfect place. We were so happy. Not only was the location so much nicer/elegant than the first one, it was less expensive, had more parking and space for the traveling pizza oven we were planning to have, and the people had a connection to Krista’s Momeye and Popeye. We were in good hands and all worked out. Early 2020 - save the dates went out to our original large guest list Mar/Apr 2020 - the pandemic swept the globe and we started to consider postponing.

Early summer 2020 - we pushed the wedding out to 10/2/21. Unfortunately Vittori Rocci Post gave us the sad news that due to covid canceling business, they could no longer financially sustain the space and had to sell. The treasurer (one of the super nice guys we had met with) had passed away. Covid had hit the organization hard in more ways than one. We were heartbroken for them. They told us they didn’t know if the space was going to remain an event hall, and even if so, if the buyer would want to maintain previous agreements. We could wait and find out, or cancel. We told them to keep our deposit and put it as a gift to the organization in Momeye & Popeye’s names, and found another local hall to move the reception to. Vittori Rocci Post has now been purchased by a carpet retailer. :( Aug 2020 - Krista had been working from home and Jason was schooling from home 5 months now. That tiny apartment was great for when we were gone most of the day, but it was no good for being in constantly. We were miserable, and it was time to move somewhere with more space for our health. A much nicer place also means much bigger bills. We started working more hours at our second jobs and side hustles, doing everything we could to still afford the 200-person wedding. Every time we had money in savings, some crisis arose that drained it. We were running ourselves into the ground, never seeing each other, not being able to even enjoy the new space we lived in. The event looming over our heads was incredibly stressful. Early 2021 - enough was enough; we couldn’t keep up with this stress and uncertainty. We made the tough decision to just cancel so we could get some breathing room and focus on ourselves and our life together with Jason. We lost some money on nonrefundable deposits, but the lost money was far less than the money we would still need to come up with so we cut our losses. Nov 2021 - our landlord/friend had suggested many times we just have the wedding here, and we thought “why the heck not”, deciding let’s just do a bbq and get it over with. We trimmed the guest list down to the wedding party, parents/siblings/grandparent/godparent and a handful of closest friends, choosing 8/20/22 and shooting out some informal texts to hold the date. Mar 2022 - As we got deeper into planning, we realized that with the amount of money it cost to rent tent/tables/chairs and everything else we’d need, we may as well just book a small venue for the same cost and have some a/c instead of sweating outside. We figured if we could find a spot available on that date, great! If not, we’d stick to Plan A and do it at home. We found the space in Tyngsborough and it is PERFECT for an intimate wedding. And there you have it. The planning journey as it stands currently. It’s been insane, and we so appreciate everyone hanging in with us. Nothing is stopping us from ending 8/20/22 as Mr. & Mrs. Lyle. Volcano? Bring it. We’ll say our vows as we float down a magma river. We feel just awful for having to trim our original guest list down so drastically, but we hope everyone understands. We love so many people so much (seriously - in 2019 when we put together our original list of people we wanted to celebrate with, it was over 400 but we quickly realized that was madness lol). We don’t want to start married life out buried in debt just for a one-day party, especially since our big goal is to buy a house. We almost just ran to the courthouse and eloped many times throughout this process, but the dream of an actual wedding was too big to give up on completely, so we had to settle for a very scaled down version of our original plans to have a wedding we can afford with our current obligations. There are so many faces of extended family and friends that we wish could be with us physically that day, but they will be on our hearts and we know we’ll be on theirs. We are truly blessed to have such a large army of people who love us.