Ashley had dreamed of her prince since she was a little girl growing up in Kentucky. She always knew he would be Southern and Catholic—and preferably whisk her away to Disney World.
“I had been raised with high expectations of how a man is supposed to treat a woman and how a man should act in his faith,” Ashley said. “I was not willing to lower my expectations for any guy.” She never dated anyone in high school. She attended Benedictine College in hopes of finding "the one," but was discouraged after two years of not finding a guy who met her standards. “Come on God! I’m really trying here! What are you waiting for?” she thought. In 2010, she signed up for CatholicMatch.
Tyler had heard about the site from a friend and was having similar problems finding someone he wanted to invest time in. “I had been trying other dating sites, but most of the people I found were up for partying and the interest was based around lust,” he said. “I didn't want that in my next relationship. I was ready to find someone I could go to church with and build a relationship with that person and God.”
Ashley had spent two years on the site without much luck and had just about given up when something prompted her to check her profile one more time. Tyler popped up since he was in her area. “Something in my heart just told me I had to make contact with this guy. I renewed my membership just to say hello,” Ashley remembered.
She and her family had just moved into a new house in Fancy Farm, Kentucky, and that new house happened to be just one street away from where Tyler lived. He was an active member of St. Charles Borromeo parish, near where Ashley’s mother had just applied for a job. Ashley and Tyler went on their first date about two weeks after meeting on CatholicMatch, and it was no surprise to anyone in their small town. “We still have not figured out how the entire parish found out about our first date before we had even met each other face to face,” said Ashley.
They went out for dinner the day before St. Patrick’s Day. “After dinner we walked down by the river. It became a little cooler than it was before we ate. Lucky me, I had an extra jacket in the car to wrap around her shoulders,” said Tyler. “Of course the night had to go by so quickly. It was one of those nights that you just wanted to freeze in time and never end. I remember a day or two after the date, I put on the jacket that I had let her wear and could smell her perfume on it, it just brought back those precious memories and I couldn't wait for the second date.”
Soon, Tyler asked Ashley to be “his lady.” He was nervous, but he knew she would say yes. The two bonded over a mutual love of movies, Batman, and Lord of the Rings. “I can be exactly who I am and he loves me—quirks and all,” said Ashley. To top it all off, they both don't like sports—another thing they have in common.
About a year after they started dating, Ashley’s family took her on a trip to Disney World to celebrate her graduation from Murray State University and her brother’s engagement. Tyler got to come on the trip, too. After dinner on the very first night, he brought her outside to a waiting horse-drawn carriage. “Silly me thought that this was my graduation present,” Ashley said. “Right there on the carriage, Tyler pulled out a ring and asked me to be his wife.”
Ashley and Tyler are getting married November 14, at St. Charles Borromeo parish in Fancy Farm, Kentucky.
“There is no way God did not have all this planned,” Ashley said. “It did not take long for us to fall in love with each other.”
