Help Us Write Our Love Story

A message from K.T.:

When I escaped my abuser in July 2024, the last thing on my mind was falling in love with someone new. But that’s the thing about life and love—you don’t really get to control either. Since I met Anthony, everything about my life has changed for the better. He is patient with my past, gentle with my heart, and kind to me in ways that I only ever believed existed in fiction. The type of man I know would never raise a hand or voice to me. The type of man who makes me feel safe and loved and wanted and cherished. The type of man who’s worth spending the rest of my life with.

All of these reasons and more are why I said yes immediately when he asked me to marry him. We had only been together for three months at that point, but he had healed eleven years of fear and heartbreak, and showed me what it means to love and be loved. I was so excited to plan our wedding together. We didn’t want anything too big or lavish, nothing super-expensive or crazy. Just a simple but special day that we could share. A happy chapter we could write to bookend a lifetime of sad stories.

We were doing really well, and I was proud of us for how much we were saving and being smart about it all. When I told my sister (who’s getting married this June) what we were spending, she was floored (and maybe a little jealous). She couldn’t believe we could find anything so inexpensive in an industry where the word ‘wedding’ alone means a 300% markup on products/services. I couldn’t believe it, either. It almost seemed too good to be true. And maybe I should have listened a little more to that instinct. After all, my dad always said, “When something seems too good to be true, it usually is.” I expected something to go wrong. Maybe the DJ wouldn’t show or the photographer would be late or the food would taste bad—you know, the usual wedding horror stories. But when the worst happened and the thing that seemed too good turned out to be just that, I never could have predicted the reason why.

I lost my source of income.

After eight years of freelancing full-time for the same company—a company that had granted me a pay raise in December—I was unceremoniously notified that not only would my pay increase no longer be honored but I would now be earning even less money than I was before they agreed to it. I went from living comfortably to having more than half my salary slashed in the blink of an eye for no other reason than a ‘merger’. In a lot of ways, I should count myself lucky. Twenty other freelancers were let go entirely. But with rent, a clotting disorder that requires me to be on one of the most expensive medications in existence, a 10-year-old stepson to raise, two dogs to take care of, a car payment, phone bills, etc. etc. etc., it became abundantly clear that paying for our wedding would no longer be possible—no matter how affordable it might be compared to more traditional wedding budgets.

Reaching out to the vendors to cancel our big day was one of the most heartbreaking and humiliating things I’ve ever had to do, second only to writing this GoFundMe description. But with a bleak job landscape and a mountain of financial insecurity staring us in the face, we’re left with very few options but to turn to others for help. I hate doing this. It makes me feel gross and needy and tacky. I’ve never been good at asking for assistance of any kind. Maybe that’s why it took me so long to escape a terrible situation and find the person who had been out there waiting for me all along. But here I am, asking you for help so we can still have a wedding—even if it’s not the one we originally planned on having.

I was never really someone who believed in ‘true love’ the way it appears in the media, or even the kindness of others. But if being with Anthony has taught me anything, it’s that these concepts aren’t just fantasies made up by romantic dreamers. They’re real, and I’m so blessed to have found them both in someone so special. No matter what happens or where we end up celebrating our marriage, I know I can always count on that.

And that’s really all that matters.

Thank you for reading our story. Thank you to anyone who feels moved enough by this to make a donation and help us get back on our feet and move forward. We don’t know what the future holds right now, but we know we’ll always have each other. And we couldn’t be more thrilled to have people in our lives who care enough to give us the chance to have our happily ever after.