We're Getting Married!

To our dear family and friends, When we decided to get married in February 2019 we immediately began dreaming of the day we’d get to celebrate our love with our closest friends and family by our side. With so many loved ones in different places, bringing everyone together to meet one another and celebrate with us felt incredibly important. As you’ve now heard, we have acknowledged that long distance travel and hours of dancing aren’t very Covid-friendly. In the spirit of keeping those that we care about safe and healthy, we have had to change our wedding plan. We will now be holding an intimate, outdoor ceremony outside at Helen’s childhood home. We are deeply saddened by the prospect of celebrating without all of you there with us. However, we are excited to start this next chapter of our lives together and hope to do lots of (safe) celebrating with you all in the months and years to come!

We met after we both moved to California in 2017. When Helen got there, it was tough to meet people so she set a goal to try and make at least one friend per month. As part of that, she joined a boxing gym. Kevin had joined the same gym and coincidentally, had signed up for the same class. One night after class as they were walking out to their cars, Kevin said, "Maine license plates, you new in town?" Helen responded, "Yeah, are you?" Kevin said he was too and Helen quickly said, "Oh cool, you wanna be friends?!" Kevin agreed to be friends but then asked Helen out on a few dates, which she declined each time. But one afternoon Helen decided to text Kevin to see if he wanted to go out for drinks with her and some other new friends. Kevin said OK and they went to Cabo Cantina, a local bar next to Venice Beach. Immediately, there was a connection. It felt to each of them that they were the only ones in the room. Since that night, they have talked every single day. Helen not only found her ‘friend for August’, she also found her soulmate.

Fast forward 18 months. Helen's sister, Alice, and her boyfriend Ryan were coming out from Maine for a visit. Plans had changed about a hundred times and, leading up to the weekend, Helen had seen some mysterious phone calls between Kevin and Alice. Driving down from San Francisco, Alice and Ryan were running late on the day they were to arrive. Kevin had disappeared early that morning, saying he had to "run errands". The sisters were supposed to go to get their nails done, (something Helen does not usually do), so Helen had to go by herself. Alice showed up after about a half an hour and then insisted they go to the beach (in the drizzle/fog) to meet Ryan to watch the sunset. Once at the beach though, Helen was immediately blindfolded. Little did they know, Kevin needed about 20 more minutes to prepare, so Alice “guided” Helen as she staggered around the beach, unable to see. Finally, the blindfold came off. Kevin was standing there, with a violinist playing in the background! He quickly blurted out a bunch of sweet things while Helen stood there saying "what the heck" a million times. Luckily, Alice heard her say "YES"! And that was when the sparkler cannons went off!