Our Love Story: Keith & Kassy

So, today is our WEDDING DAY! Obviously, I wrote this post a week ago so I can’t tell you exactly how I’m feeling today but I promise I’ll do an update after the wedding/honeymoon and let you all know how it went. I can tell you this, though, I’m so ready to be Keith Randazzo’s wife.

In the spirit of the day and because there are a lot of you who don’t know anything about us, I’ve decided to share with you our wonderful, slightly funny, definitely unique, love story!

Disclaimer: This is a LONG post. Also, please forgive some of the photo quality. We didn’t know we’d be posting them to a blog when we took them!

The Friendship: I met Keith in March of 2014. I had heard MUCH about him from his now best friend, Tim. Okay, so I didn’t hear that much. The information mostly consisted of, “He has a six pack and he’s gunna get me one too!” Tim, Elizabeth (my now best friend), and I were all doing a musical (Fiddler on the Roof) at our church in Baton Rouge.

They did their very best to set Keith and I up, but frankly, I couldn’t have been more uninterested. I had just gotten out of a pretty dramatic relationship, to say the least, and I had had enough of both romance and heartache. But, thankfully, I WAS looking for friends.

Keith was introduced to me briefly after one of our performances, but he and I both barely remember the encounter (it was the night my previous relationship ended… weird, I know).

After the musical ended, Elizabeth and I continued to become closer and closer friends. She started to invite me to stuff with her friends, including Tim. And Tim always brought Keith. And there was also, Austin. We love Austin!

We were a pretty exclusive group. In fact, I had to be ‘voted in’ (It was unanimous). One of our first group outings was to White Linen Night at the Shaw Center. This was the first time Keith and I actually had a conversation. I made sure to send serious ‘I’m not interested’ vibes Keith’s way. He got the message loud and clear and happily decided to just be my friend. He even started talking to and eventually sort-of dating another girl from this party. I supported it, too! From that point on, we became friends, GREAT friends. There was absolutely no romantic attraction or chemistry there. We were friends, in the purest, simplest definition of the word.

We continued to grow our friendship. We went so many fun places with so many fun people. We all worked to encourage each other, love each other, and help each other through the tough moments. We all had a very strong bond that was held together through our faith in Christ. We were able to have deep, emotional conversations and laugh about fart jokes in the same sitting.

Keith, Elizabeth and I started ‘We do Wednesdays’ where we would make a point to get together EVERY Wednesday to watch New Girl on FOX and talk about life. During this time, both Keith and I went on dates with other people and helped each other with relationship advice.

People would always joke that either Elizabeth or I would end up marrying Keith. We laughed it off, and I honestly thought it would have to be Elizabeth if it happened because there was NO WAY I was about to date Keith. He was awesome and I loved him as my best friend but there was no chemistry.

The Clumsy Romance: No one was more surprised than me the day I looked at Keith and saw something more. I can’t pinpoint an exact time or day, but something changed. He was still the same amazing guy that I knew, but all of the sudden, I wasn’t okay with him going out on a date with some random girl he met.

But I was so unsure. I knew the dangers of crossing the line from friend to boyfriend and I know you can’t easily come back after you crossed that line. I didn’t want to lose Keith as a friend, since I would count Keith, Elizabeth and the rest of my new friends and church family as one of the biggest blessings from God that I had ever received. Their friendship pulled me out of a really dark place and reminded me that I am a child of God and that he has plans for me that are better than I could imagine.

And that is what I thought this new feeling was: A stupid, hormonal girl trying to make her own plans. So I opted to let it go and continue on what I thought was God’s perfect plan.

Little did I know, that while I was talking Elizabeth’s ear off about my misguided feelings toward Keith, He was doing the same to her. She finally had enough and decided to step out of the middle and make us talk about it.

The Horrible First Date: Even though I had already decided this was a bad idea, I agree to go out on a date with Keith. I wish I could say, “and the rest was history” but that is way too simple.

I gave some Keith ‘date rules’ that he had to follow: 1)nothing serious 2) nothing that involves “normal date stuff” 3) no fancy dinner. So he planned a night of relaxed mini-golf and frozen yogurt.

I admit I went into the date with a bad attitude. Below is a picture of me about 20 minutes before he picked me up from Elizabeth’s house. Stressed, anxious, nervous, scared? All of the above.

The date was HORRIBLE. I was basically a brick wall and Keith tried really hard to make good conversation but I wasn’t having it. It was awkward. Keep in mind, we’d been best friends for almost a year and pretty much knew everything about each other so we weren’t in the ‘getting to know you’ phase anymore.

After the date was over and Keith had dropped me off, I called him and told him that we were never doing that again. I told him it was a bad idea in the first place and that his friendship was too important to me to risk it on a relationship that would obviously be a train wreck. We were going to pretend like this date had never happened.

The Waiting Period: And we did. For almost 2 months, we continued to be best friends and acted as though the date had never happened. Keith went on several dates and I moped around like a 5 year old. But I was unwilling to admit that it bothered me because I was determined to stand my ground.

The tension was there, though. I could feel it, Keith could feel it, and poor Elizabeth who was always stuck in the middle was sick and tired of feeling it. These pictures from the Renaissance Festival say it all, I think (but maybe that’s because I remember what it felt like). We were fighting the inevitable.

The real game changer happened after I got into a wreck on my way home from work one night. I totaled my car and though I was physically fine, I was an emotional basket case. Keith and Elizabeth raced out to Walker really late that night to just hang out and comfort me. It was then that my parents met Keith for the first time.

A couple days after the wreck my dad asked mye about my recent date with Keith. I told him the whole story and how it was over now and we were just friends. My dad, who NEVER gets involved in my love life other than to tell me he doesn’t like the guy (which as been every single one except Keith), told me that I was making the biggest mistake of my life. And that if I let Keith go, I’d regret it.

That scared the life of out of me but I rolled my eyes and moved on. His words stuck with me, though.

The Moment of Truth: A couple weeks later, I moved back to Baton Rouge in the house next to Elizabeth. Keith helped me move in all day. That night Elizabeth and I were planning a Girls Night In, but half through our large pizza, Keith knocked on my door. He said he needed to talk to me but HELLO, I was eating so I made him wait.

I didn’t realize I was torturing him, but he says it was agonizing. An hour or so later, he and I finally have a chance to talk.

I can tell he’s super nervous but he says, “Kassy, this is stupid and you know I’m right. We are supposed to be together. So I think from now on, we should date.” He went on and on pouring his heart out about how he tried dating other people but he knew that it wasn’t right.

After a while of him explaining how he reached his decision I finally spoke up. And do you know what I said? The only thing that came to my mind. I said, “Okay.” He was confused but I don’t think he wanted to question it.

So from that moment on, we began a journey that would lead us to the altar. Here are a couple of snap shots:

The Proposal: Keith proposed at our church where we first met in March of 2014 and where we worship together every Sunday. All of our family and friends were there and it is a moment I will never forget (especially since he tried to put the ring on the wrong finger).

The Engagement Photos:

Thank you Eddy Perez for these AMAZING images and Elizabeth Shaw for all of the other ones that Eddy didn’t take!

And so now we’re here. On our wedding day and we cannot wait to begin our lives together. We thank God every day that his plans are better than the ones we have for ourselves. I am so thankful that Keith is my provision from the Lord. Keith makes me want to strive to be a better Woman of God and I am humbled to follow his Godly example for the rest of my life.

Today we celebrate our marriage as a commitment to each other and a covenant with God. Please keep us in your prayers as we begin this journey together.

This is Day 1.