We're so excited to celebrate with you!

Groom: During the summer of 2016, I found my myself unemployed and living on my own in Southern California. I took the opportunity to apply to jobs everywhere I could to see where life would take me. I accepted a job in the Bay Area and moved up that August. One of the first ultimate frisbee tournaments I was told I "HAD TO" sign up for was Halloween Huck. Each team got a general theme, and we all come in our own costumes. Couldn't have planned it any better that my team was Star Wars themed. That weekend, I pulled out the old Boba Fett onesie and headed to the beach. That day was awesome. Met lots of great people, and of course, her. With the help of a teammate, we got introduced, started talking, went out to lunch with everyone after the tournament, and exchanged numbers before we parted ways. Every guy has heard the "wait three days to call her" rule, but there was no way in hell I was gonna wait that long. I was texting her the same day, and now, here we are all these years later. Bride: I moved back to the Bay Area from Boston in the fall of 2015, but unfortunately wasn't able to go to Halloween Huck my first year back. Coincidentally, 2016 was the first year I attended Halloween Huck. My team was the Justice League where I dressed up as the Black Canary. The first team we played against was the Star Wars team. As part of the tournament we all vote on best costume on the opposing team. There was no competition - the best costume on the Star Wars team was definitely the guy in the Boba Fett onesie.

Most people choose a romantic or picturesque place for their engagement photo shoot, so you may be wondering how we chose the locations for ours. The inspiration? Our first date! Dennis was still new to the Bay Area, so when he asked Kyra out, Kyra gave a recommendation: ice cream sundaes at Ghirardelli Square. We had a fun time chatting while eating our ice cream and weren't quite reading to end the night when our empty ice cream bowls would have dictated it. So, Kyra led a walk along Fisherman's Wharf towards one of her favorite tourist sights, Pier 39. (For those of you who don't know, Kyra loves marine mammals). It was a nice night for a walk, albeit a bit chilly. We spent what was likely hours standing at the ledge, watching the California sea lions, and talking the night away. Literally. It must have been around 2am before we parted ways. What can we say? When you find the right person, you never want the night to end.

When people ask Kyra about the proposal, one of the questions that I hear is, "Were you surprised?" To which her honest answer is, "No." But that's okay! We had been designing the ring together for months, so she knew it was coming, just didn't know the specifics for when or how. I wanted to propose somewhere that was special and specific to us. My original idea was to do it in Boston while we were out there visiting friends in the summer. The previous year, she had shown me the neighborhood where her grandparents used to live and I could easily see a good place to hide a photographer, have great scenery, but the ring wasn't ready in time. So plan B. The next best option was where it all began: Halloween Huck. My first step was getting the tournament director to help me out. I emailed the organization with what I was planning, and they were fully on board to help out. At the end of the tournament, each team has a person that gets voted for having the best costume. I knew this would be my best bet to get her up in front of everyone for me to pop the question. The director agreed that he would call me up to make it work. Once I had the tournament aspect locked down, I needed to build the audience. I talked to both of our parents about the idea and they were all on board. My mom and grandma got flights to come up for the event and her parents agreed to be there as well. I then contacted all of her bridesmaids to see if any of them were available to join, and two of them that were in the area came. The day of, we had a great day of playing ultimate. The sun was out, our costumes were awesome, and our team was undefeated. During the last game, I was trying to balance getting everyone in the right place while still playing. Thankfully it all worked out perfectly. After she said, "Yes," I was able to surprise her by pointing to our friends and family that were hiding in the back. She may have not been surprised by the proposal, but it was still memorable for everyone.

If you have ever been in a relationship and have gone to a wedding, you know the atmosphere can always spark conversations and thoughts of the potential future. In October of 2018, Kyra and I found ourselves on a two and a half week trip where we attended three weddings in three different locations: Mexico, Southern California, and Western Massachusetts. While we were in Mexico, we had plenty of those atmospheric moments. One in particular came to us while sitting on the swings by the bar at the reception. We were taking a break from the crowd and the noise and enjoying some amazing drinks. We had previous conversations before this talking about marriage and the future. This made us think of the questions of, "If it were us, what would be our date?" This made us start thinking of various reasons or circumstances that had some kind of meaning for us. In the end, we ended up picking June 5th, 2021. The pandemic unfortunately changed those plans a little. We kept the date and did an intimate marriage ceremony, but had to postpone our wedding. We still want to share the story of how we chose our original date. My (Dennis) birthday is April 3rd (4/3) and Kyra's birthday is August 7th (8/7). Both of them have the pattern of the month minus one equals the day. This lead us to June 5th (6/5). It is directly between our two birthdays, it falls in the summer so it will be nice and warm for Kyra, and it would allow us to do something on the beach. While checking the calendar, the day fell on a Saturday in 2021. All of the pieces seemed to fall perfectly together. Of course, nobody expected a worldwide pandemic and the need to postpone. In an effort to stay as close to June 5th as possible and find a date available for all of our vendors, we landed on June 4, 2022. Thank you Mike and Mel for giving us the opportunity to come up with our date!

Beaches have played an important part in our relationship. We met and Dennis proposed at the Halloween Huck beach ultimate frisbee tournament. Additionally, Mike and Mel's wedding where we decided on our wedding date was also at a beach (in Mexico!). If all of those reasons weren't enough, I'd say the beach is one of my (Kyra's) favorite places! Once we decided that we wanted to do a beach wedding, we thought about the different places we could do one. We visiting a variety of venues in California, but none of them felt quiet right. Our first vacation together was on Oahu for Dennis' birthday in 2017. In January of 2020, we decided to scope out some potential venues on the island. We landed on Kualoa Ranch's Secret Island for the ceremony and Moli'i Gardens for the reception. Secret Island is one of the rare beaches on the Hawaiian Islands where you can have a secluded ceremony. When we visited, we both immediately felt it was the perfect place and it checked off all of the boxes we were looking for. The gardens are beautiful and a wonderful way to experience the tropical greenery Hawaii has to offer.