Kelsey Kimball and Hunter Dyer are close friends, so when Hunter’s brother Dustin came back from Colorado to visit his family for Thanksgiving a few years back, they all hung out most of the week — and Kelsey and Dustin got to know each other a little bit.

Time passed, Kelsey and Dustin dated, and in the winter of 2020 they went to the Green Mountain Inn in Stowe as a small getaway for Dustin’s birthday — Jan. 26. Kelsey says Dustin LOVES his birthday, a day that’s all about him. “So I never thought he would want to share his special day with me, but boy was I wrong!” Kelsey says. Dustin proposed that day.

Like a lot of couples, the Dyers found that planning for a wedding was overwhelming.

They were supposed to get married on June 11, 2022, but due to health issues, had to postpone. The venue where they planned to wed only had a few dates left for 2023 and one happened to be Sept. 16, which was the birthday of Kelsey’s best friend, Jeffrey Manshel, who had passed away. Normally that’s a sad day for Kelsey, but she and Dustin figured getting married on that date would create a happy reason to mark Sept. 16.

When the wedding day finally arrived, it was very special. Kelsey’s dad brought his old Chevy truck to transport his daughter and her bridesmaids so they could make a big entrance when they arrived — everyone loved it. The bride says that when the groom saw her pull up in the truck, get out and start walking down the aisle toward him, his face showed a range of emotions that were priceless.

“He cried more than I could have imagine, and the moment was perfect,” Kelsey remembers.

Their wedding day was the same number of hours as any other day, but for the happy couple, time flew by.

“When I got home I felt like I had talked to so many people but so briefly that I felt like I hardly saw anyone,” Kelsey recalls. 

The Dyers have some advice for other brides and grooms to be. Try not to stress about things. Planning is stressful, but when the day comes, you’ll never think about all the little things that went wrong or things you wish you had done. The day is about you and your partner and that’s the only thing that matters.