Her Mom Spied on Their First Date!
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Back in 2017, Elizabeth was working on her Master’s degree in teaching from Fresno State in California. She had just gotten out of a relationship, and while completing her degree and internships (a mostly female cohort), found she wasn’t finding a lot of dating options.
First, she said a very honest prayer.
So, one day, as she was sitting in church before Mass, she made the very upfront and honest prayer, asking Him to help her find her future husband. Soon after this prayer, she was looking through the bulletin and saw an ad for Catholic Match. She looked back and forth between the ad and the crucifix several times and thought, “Well, Lord, You like to work fast, don’t You!?”
She admits she did not put much effort into making her profile, however. “I put the bare minimum in my profile. I was thinking ‘I don’t have time to put more into this!” as she was getting done with her student teaching, finishing her Master’s, and lesson planning. But thankfully her roommate was an English minor who convinced her to add more and edited her profile for her.
Elizabeth was spending the summer with her mom who had been transferred to Columbus, Ohio, and decided to accept her mom’s invite to move there after graduation. Before finals, she switched her profile location to Columbus, OH. “I thought at least then I’ll have my mom to make me hot chocolate and cry to if I get a broken heart!” she laughs.
Then, she headed home.
During the busy months of finals, student teaching, and getting ready for graduation, “Dating was on the back burner!” she says. Then, the week of her graduation, she was excited to accept a job in her hometown of Bakersfield California!
Enter Kyle Beczkiewicz, who messaged her in May 2017 for the first time. It read: “Congrats on completing your Master, what is your degree in?”
I thought, “This guy is really cute, but MICHIGAN?!?! What did I do?!?!” Elizabeth felt terrible because she had forgotten to switch her location back to California! “My roommate said, ‘Did you not look at a map?’” she laughs. So, she messaged him back thinking, “I need to let this guy know I”m moving back to California for at least a year.”
But Kyle said, “Let’s just see where this goes.” And Elizabeth took him up on it because of his thoughtful first message, which she said was very different from any other guys’ messages that she’d experienced. Thus far, she had messaged a lot of people, but according to her “it was a lot of surface-level stuff like ‘you’re pretty' and I hadn’t gone out in person with anyone.”
“What drew me to Kyle over anybody else, was that I had so little on my profile, but he took the time to be thoughtful and ask a personal question about me.” she remembers.
Kyle wasn't new to online dating...
He had tried a few dating sites, but nothing went very far. “There were a few meetups,” he says, “but they weren't focused on the faith, and being able to celebrate my faith and share that with someone was important to me.” So when he also found the CatholicMatch ads in the bulletins, he decided to give it a try. At the time, he was living in the Detroit Michigan area for work after moving from his hometown of Muskego, Wisconsin. He says “When I started using CM, I was a little bit nervous about how much of a niche community it would be, but I found out there are people all over the country.”
“I messaged a few people in the area, but nothing went beyond messaging. So I set the location limit to about the max!” He laughs. He thought Elizabeth’s picture was cute, so he clicked on her profile. And, when he saw she was in Columbus, well, “4 hours didn’t seem too bad. Haha!”
After about two weeks of messages back and forth that eventually got to be novels, Kyle said “it was made very clear to me that I needed to call Elizabeth to ask to meet for a date.”
“He wasn’t much of a talker, but I am!” she says. “I told him I’m trying to be as old-fashioned as possible - you’re going to have to call me and ask me out on the phone.” And he did! “Both our voices were shaking,” she smiles.
Their first date went really well!
For their first date, they decided to go to an art festival in downtown Columbus. It was a gorgeous day in June. “Kyle was 45 minutes late due to construction on highways.” Elizabeth states. “We had agreed to meet at a coffee shop, but the shop was closing. So my mom and her friends sat on a patio of a bar across the street to watch me and make sure I’m ok!”
Kyle felt terrible about running late, called her to tell her he was still coming, and was nervous that things had gotten off on the wrong foot. But it was more than OK. “When he walked in, my breath was taken away!” Elizabeth recalls. I was like, “He’s beautiful! He’s got green eyes and dimples! I mean wow!”
Her mom thought so too. “My mom texted me from across the street, saying ‘he’s so cute!’ And I texted back “yeah, get lost!” Elizabeth laughs. She was so overwhelmed that she couldn’t say anything. “So I ran to the bathroom, gave myself a pep talk and got myself together.” she says.
Kyle recalls seeing her for the first time, “I was just like, speechless. The whole first date was just - easy. Easy to talk, and enjoy time together.”
They found a cute little bench under a tree and according to them: “Just talked. For hours. It was great, not forced. It was like meeting an old friend and talking about life. It was great.”
This was followed by a lovely dinner. “As we said goodbye, Kyle went to give me a hug.” she says. “I was surprised. Then I started to leave and he asked ‘can I kiss you?’ - I was raised to not kiss on the first date, but I said yes! Then he kissed me, and there were fireworks!” He asked to see her again the following week.
The next big challenge was the distance...
They had a few dates, and then it came time for Elizabeth to move back to California to start her job. They were a little nervous to start out long-distance between Michigan and California. “We were driving to my parent’s house after about one and a half months,” she recalls. “He had his thinking face on and I could tell something was up. I really thought ‘this man is breaking up with me!’ I couldn’t breathe!” So she asked him and he said, “No, I'm trying to tell you that I’m committed to you!”
Elizabeth was surprised at how quickly her feelings for Kyle grew. “I had cried in the middle of the grocery store with my mom. I said ‘Mom, you can’t fall in love with someone this quickly!' And my mom said, ‘You can if God’s in control’. So then I really lost it!”
She couldn’t keep this revelation to herself, so one day she told him, “Kyle, I know it’s not ladylike to say it. But I have to say it!” And of course, he said he loved her too.
Thus began three years of him coming to California to go on dates, talking on the phone, texting throughout the day, and Facetime. Long-distance had its struggles for them. “When I was in CA and he was in MI there was a 3 hour time difference,” states Elizabeth. “So I had to be really careful to get home quickly to talk to him before his day was done.” And they had to be intentional about seeing one another. “We would sit down with our planners and go through to determine when we could see each other, buy tickets and hotel rooms and such,” she says.
In the fall of 2018, Kyle moved back to Wisconsin to start law school at Marquette University. And then in 2019, Elizabeth accepted a teaching position at the Ohio School for the Deaf and moved back to Columbus. Kyle had finished up Spring Semester and had a month before summer internship. So they got to spend a month together in Columbus during the height of covid.
He planned a beautiful proposal!
Then the day came for him to pop the question! “It was her 30th birthday. We went to Mass together and went to a family friend's place to celebrate.” Kyle says. “I asked Elizabeth if she wanted to go for a walk; we walked over to “our bench” - the bench we sat on at our first date, and also every time we were in Columbus together.” He got down on one knee and said, “I could never see life without you, I’m so blessed to have you in my life, will you marry me?”
Elizabeth was thrilled. “I had never prayed so much for someone or something, and I truly believe this is all because of God.” she states. “There was no way we were going to meet each other except for Him. This is exactly what scripture teaches us.. . being faithful, being prayerful. He is my gift.”
Then came wedding prep.
“Planning a wedding during a pandemic really does test your faith!” said Elizabeth. “You need to have so many contingencies. But we had a fantastic wedding planner.” Both of them express, “We much more enjoyed all the marriage prep classes we got to do. We did it online through a diocese-approved website. We appreciated that a lot more than just a weekend retreat. It was great to have it be a focus over a longer period of time.” Another helpful preparation they did during their first year of dating was “A devotional where we did the Bible, the Catechism and talked about the faith.”
They got married in Columbus on June 25th, 2021. In memorial of “their bench” they had all their 87 guests sign a bench that sits in their home today! And according to them, “The wedding was wonderful - a dream come true!” They loved their priest and parish there so much, “When Kyle got the call he got the job offer here in Milwaukee, we teared up that we had to leave that parish!”
And what is the couple up to these days?
Kyle graduated from law school and started at a law firm this year. Elizabeth is teaching in the Milwaukee area. And “For the first time in 4 years, 4,000 miles, 4 hour drives, however many plane tickets later - we’re finally in our own place!” says Elizabeth. They live close to Kyle’s parents and sisters as it was a priority for them to stay close to family.
For Kyle, the best thing about marriage is “Finally being together in person - not just being on Facetime or Zoom or talking on the phone.” And Elizabeth? “No more having to coordinate flights and visits. WE get to BE together!”
And their advice to other daters out there?
“Make your faith a priority - really and truly make it a priority,” says Kyle. “I loved that we’d go to Mass and talk about the homilies. I don’t think it would have been as smooth if we didn’t.”
And as for long-distance, Elizabeth would say, “Be willing to take that risk - if you’re on CatholicMatch, you’re there for a reason, you’ve committed yourself to your boyfriend or girlfriend to take the risk. Trust in God and His plan for you. If we didn’t we wouldn’t be here! We’re so blessed to be here and be together. Just trust and let God do what God does.”