OCTOBER 1-4, 2026 | ROANOKE, VA
Kelly & Laven
2 kids from Roanoke.
11 years out of touch.
A bumble swipe.
The greatest love story of all time?
Sequins welcome.
Feathers encouraged.
N*vy suits tolerated.
Our story
The greatest love story of all time
ACT I
Camp friends, same hometown, zero follow-through.
They met as counselors at a University of Virginia summer camp. Kelly thought Laven was too cool for her. Laven secretly thought the same of her. They were "just friends," both from Roanoke, both clearly feeling something. And then life moved on and took them with it. 11 years passed.
ACT II
The Mediocre Memorial Day Weekend tradition is born
Kelly was living in NYC, had a dog named Carmen, a surfboard, and a plan to move to San Diego. She was passing through Roanoke on her way west when she and Laven matched on Bumble. The match was about to expire. She still had his number. She texted him.
Laven's response: "I had a few drinks and I regret anything I did last night including swiping."
Romantic. They got beers anyway. Sparks flew.
Laven offered to meet Kelly in Oklahoma City for Memorial Day. They went. They had a great time with each other. Oklahoma City was fine. It exists. They now visit a new mediocre American city every Memorial Day. It has become sacred.
ACT III
San Diego. Fleas. The Incident.
Laven flew out to visit Kelly in San Diego. Kelly was sick. Laven got sick immediately upon arrival. Carmen had fleas — bad fleas, like bad bad — requiring vet trips and multiple covert flea baths in the landlord's yard, conducted with the urgency of a heist and the dignity of neither party.
Then Carmen went to the dog beach and produced what can only be described as a life-altering bowel movement. Truly historic. They still bring it up. With reverence.
They laughed through all of it. That visit is when they knew.
ACT IV
Hulaween. The only girl. The L-bomb.
Laven invited Kelly to Hulaween — a music festival in Live Oak, Florida, part jam band, part EDM, four days of camping in the woods. A sacred annual pilgrimage for the #HulaTrueBelievers. Kelly is not a camper. She agreed because Laven has a sprinter van, which is a perfectly reasonable basis for major life decisions.
Somewhere on the drive from Atlanta to Live Oak, Kelly asked who else was going. Laven informed her she was the only girl. New relationship. Red-eye flight. Florida wilderness. Group of strangers. Completely normal.
Reader: she had a great time. It was also at Hulaween — in the sprinter van, somewhere between the jam bands and the EDM sets — that Laven said "I love you" for the first time. Kelly said "I love you too" before he finished the sentence. He barely got the words out. She has no regrets.
(Special mention to Brooks, who came through Tom, who has three kids now and hasn't been back since, which means Brooks and Laven are now arguably better friends than Laven and Tom. Tom knows. Tom accepts this. We love Tom.)
ACT V
Laven goes to Army-Navy
Fair is fair. Kelly survived Hulaween. Laven would now survive Army-Navy.
The Army-Navy football game is Kelly's sacred ritual — one she's attended every year since her best friend Lo married Marty, a West Point grad and Special Forces veteran, back in 2016. Rain, cold, Army losing — none of it matters. You go. You drink something warm. You cheer.
Laven came. He survived. He met Marty's West Point crew, who are now his crew too. (Shoutout to Matt Tramel, who earned a permanent place in this love story simply by showing up.) Army may not always win, but the friend group keeps growing. We're counting that as a victory. BEAT NAVY.
ACT VI
The passenger princess is crowned.
After five months of long distance, Kelly made the call. San Diego could wait. She was moving back to Roanoke.
Laven flew to San Diego, loaded up the car with Kelly, Carmen, and all their stuff, and drove the whole way back across the country. Kelly did not drive, but rode shotgun. Kelly has since been officially and permanently crowned Passenger Princess, a title she has accepted with zero shame and considerable pride.
That's love. The kind that makes someone fly across the country to drive your stuff home. The kind that survives flea baths, swamp festivals, and freezing cold football games. The kind that starts with a drunk Bumble swipe and ends with a wedding.
We think that counts for something.
Reasons you should come to our wedding
It is genuinely not in Oklahoma City (or Houston).
We wouldn’t make you do that (Especially, Uncle Scott).
1.
The dress code is funky formal — sequins, feathers, color. Not mandatory. But if you show up in a sequined jumpsuit we will find you at the reception and tell you how much we love you.
2.
3.
It took us 11 years, a drunk swipe, a flea infestation, a swamp festival, and a freezing cold football game to get here. The least you can do is show up. We're not guilting you. We're just saying.