Even though Kristen, 21, wasn’t Catholic, she decided to join CatholicMatch in September of 2010. She had been attending Mass and was considering RCIA at the time. She decided to give CatholicMatch a try because she had heard so many good things about it from her Catholic friends.
Nick, 23, had been a member since spring of 2010. He contacted Kristen soon after she joined. “She told me right off the bat that she wasn’t Catholic. I thought it was cool that she was on there and considering the Catholic Church,” Nick says.
The two communicated sporadically until January of 2011. Kristen was graduating from college and would be in Texas for two weeks before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film and television.
“She said, 'You need to come meet me because this is your one chance to see if we should continue to pursue the relationship because I am moving far away,'" he recalls.
Nick traveled from Little Rock to Dallas to visit Kristen on New Year’s Day 2011. Their first day of being together went well. They spent time driving and walking around to different stores, and talking to one another. The next day they went to Mass and then out for brunch. “Brunch was really quiet and awkward. There was a lot of phone checking,” Kristen recalls. “We were both kind of hesitant.”
Nick says, “We found out that it was a lot easier for us to talk via phone and text than it was to talk in person.”
Because their conversations were so easy over the phone, they had high expectations for their first weekend together. “We thought it was going to be magic,” says the couple. When it turned out to be far from magical, Kristen left Nick saying, “‘You’re going to make some girl very happy someday." She was thinking to herself: “Just not me."
Even though their weekend was not as successful as they had hoped for and Kristen now lived thousands of miles away, Nick did not give up on their relationship. “Nick kept pursuing me by talking to me. I was thinking, 'Man this guy doesn’t give up!' We talked every single day.”
“I pursued her because I really liked talking to her,” says Nick.
In April of 2011, he flew out to visit Kristen in Los Angeles. This would be the first time Nick had ever flown, and he didn't bring his cell phone because it was broken. “I told him I really hope I can find you!” Kristen remembers.
“When she picked me up at the airport, it felt right. It was like we had always known each other and it was comfortable,” Nick says.
This visit was totally different from the last one. After having spent a week together, “we knew at that point that this could go somewhere,” they say.
The two continued nurturing their long-distance relationship through phone conversations and Skype. Memorial Day weekend 2011, Kristen came to Arkansas to meet Nick’s family, and on July 4th weekend, they both met up in Dallas so that she could introduce Nick to her parents.
Things were getting serious, and a month later, Nick visited Los Angeles again. He ended up buying an engagement ring then. “I had no idea that was going to happen. We had talked about our future and we had looked at rings, but nothing serious,” Kristin exclaims.
Nick adds, “I hadn’t planned on getting it that day. The sales lady talked me into it while Kristen was off shopping. I was kind of laughing about it, but I did it. I decided I didn’t want to wait any longer. I think we both knew that this was what God was calling us to.”
“I knew he had bought the ring because he can’t keep secrets,” Kristen laughs.
Kristen knew he had the ring, but she didn’t know exactly when Nick was going to propose. He had led her to believe that he would be asking her sometime in mid-September. She didn’t know that he had a surprise proposal planned for her.
Kristen was flying to Little Rock to see Nick on Labor Day weekend. She had a layover in Dallas, and she was surprised to see Nick at her at her gate with an engagement ring.
“When I got off my connecting flight in Dallas; there he was. My parents were able to be there as well because my dad pulled some strings. Her dad also filmed the proposal and put it on Youtube, so the world knows that we got engaged at Dallas Fort Worth airport."
Nick moved out to Los Angeles in October of 2011, so they could spend more time together before the wedding. “His moving out was an adjustment for us because our whole relationship had been long distance. It felt odd that I could call him up and say, ‘Let’s go out to
dinner.’ Before it would be: ’It’s 60 days until I see you again,’” Kristen says.
Wedding
On a sweltering day in June of 2012, Kristen and Nick were wed at St. Jude Catholic Church, in Allen Texas. “The only thing that I regret is that we didn’t have a Mass because I wasn’t Catholic yet. [Editor's Note: It’s acceptable to have a wedding Mass as long as one person is a baptized Catholic. However, the non-Catholic cannot partake in Holy Communion]. I wish I had been able to receive Communion with my husband.”
Happily, three months after their wedding, she was finally able to receive Holy Communion with him because Kristen entered the Church.
In 2013, they moved to Little Rock, and both of them are now working as youth ministers at their parish. “One of the biggest joys in our marriage is getting to work with each other every day,” says the couple.
“Working together also brings challenges though; because we’ve had to learn to turn work off to take time for ourselves.”
