In January 2018, Andrew Stephen Matt said he spent the best $20.18 he’d ever spent: He bought an unlimited class monthly pass at Lync Cycling in Dallas.
The following month, he began taking indoor cycling classes run by Kayla Nicole Dye, who immediately took a liking to him. “I loved how kind he was,” she said.
After a few months, she promoted him to the head of the class. “He was always closing Bike 22 in the back,” Ms Dye, 33, said. “I put him on Bike 12.” She then got really bold and booked him front and center on Bike 4.
“I went kicking and screaming,” Mr Matt said. But he didn’t really mind. “There were so many moments where I felt like a walking cliché that I adored my incredibly good-looking gym class instructor,” she said.
She couldn’t help but wonder if she was picking him up because she thought he was a good cyclist or handsome. It turned out to be a bit of both. He was a good cyclist, she said, and “I was looking forward to my cute sweetie.”
“Kayla’s superpower makes adults do things outside their comfort zone,” said 31-year-old Mr Matt, who in January 2019 had also become a cycling instructor at the studio.
A little over a year later, the studio closed for a few months due to Covid and the two lost touch. However, two weeks after the reopening, in June 2020, they met at a group dinner at the Mexican Sugar restaurant in Plano, Texas, which included associates. “We had a moderate amount of tequila,” Ms. Dye said.
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After dinner, they went to the nearby bar Scruffy Duffies. Mr Matt “started singing to the Nine Days song ‘A Story of a Girl’ but he had changed the words,” Ms Dye said, “which was like falling in love with his cycling teacher. I was crushed.”
He asked him to explain himself. “You’re basically engaged, and if I don’t say it now, I’ll never get the chance to say it,” Mr. Matt recalled telling her. “I always loved you.” Then he kissed her.
The two met for brunch the next day “to discuss the mistake of the kiss and talk about how it can’t happen again,” said Ms. Dye, who had a boyfriend at the time with whom she had discussed marriage. But, she said, “as soon as we sat down, our waitress immediately commented on what a cute couple we were. I knew I was done at that moment.”
On July 12, 2020, Ms. Dai broke up with her boyfriend. In late July, she and Mr. Matt went on their first official date at the Whiskey Cake restaurant in Plano. “Andrew is doubling back and telling me he loves me again,” Ms Dye said.
The two start hanging out outside of work.
Mrs Dye said she and Matt became “inseparable and spent almost every day together”.
Ms. Dye, who grew up in Portland, Ore., is currently a group fitness instructor at Equinox and brand manager for the luxury event planning company Pop Parties. He has a BA in French from Arizona State University.
A native of Colleyville, Texas, Mr. Matt is the head of valuation and consulting for the Americas Services strategic marketing group for Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate firm. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma and will begin an MBA program at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business in the fall.
Mr. Matt planned to propose on February 9, 2022, during a hike to a waterfall on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, where the couple were on a birthday trip for Ms. Dai’s mother. But “within minutes, we were covered in mud trying to navigate our way through the Hawaiian ‘jungle’ until three dogs came barreling towards us,” Ms Dye said.
The dogs, who said they seemed to come out of nowhere, somehow guided the pair to the base of the waterfall. “However, to get to the falls, you basically had to climb down the side of this 15-foot drop.” Mr. Matt immediately fell to the bottom, getting a few minor scrapes and bruises. He decided that now was not the time to propose.
Instead, despite being incredibly seasick, Mr. Matt proposed on a sunset cruise the next night. “Andrew was green in the face, drinking all the ginger ale they could buy and hoping he wouldn’t miss his lunch,” Mrs Dye said. He held it together and she said yes.
The couple tied the knot on April 20 at Union House, an event venue in Cleburne, Texas, with 140 guests in attendance. Ms. Dye’s friend Elizabeth Furlong, who was ordained by Universal Life Church for the event, officiated.
The two celebrated “4/20” with a tattoo artist offering flash tattoos, including designs of marijuana leaves. Ms. Dye got two tattoos. “Our wedding date on my arm and our nickname for each other on my left hand — Pookie,” she said.