In January 2018, Andrew Stephen Matt said he spent the best $20.18 he’d ever spend: He bought a one-month, unlimited class pass to Lync Cycling in Dallas.
The next month, he began by taking indoor cycling classes conducted by Kayla Nicole Dye, who immediately took a liking to him. “I liked how kind he was,” she said.
After a few months, she moved him up to the head of the class. “He always booked Bike 22 in the back,” Ms. Dye, 33, said. “I moved him up to Bike 12.” Then she got really bold and booked him front and center on Bike 4.
“I kind of went kicking and screaming,” Mr. Matt said. But he didn’t really mind. “There were so many moments I felt like a walking cliché having a crush on the incredibly good-looking instructor of my fitness class,” he said.
He couldn’t help but wonder if she was moving him up because she thought he was a good cyclist or good looking. Turns out it was a little of both. He was a good cyclist, she said, and “I looked forward to my cute eye candy.”
“Kayla’s super power is getting adults to do things outside of their comfort zone,” said Mr. Matt, 31, who by January 2019 had also become a cycling instructor at the studio.
Just over a year later, the studio closed for a couple of months because of Covid and the two lost touch. But two weeks after the reopening, in June 2020, they met up at a group dinner at the restaurant Mexican Sugar in Plano, Texas, that included fellow staff. “We had a moderate amount of tequila,” Ms. Dye said.
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After dinner, they moved on to the nearby bar Scruffy Duffies. Mr. Matt “started singing to the tune of ‘A Story of a Girl’ by Nine Days, but he had changed the words,” Ms. Dye said, “something along the lines of falling in love with his cycling instructor. I was floored.”
She asked him to explain himself. “You are basically engaged to be engaged and if I don’t say this now, I will never get the chance to say it,” Mr. Matt recalled telling her. “I have 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 how cute of a couple we were. I knew I was done for in that moment.”
On July 12, 2020, Ms. Dye broke up with her boyfriend. At the end of July, she and Mr. Matt went on their first official date to the restaurant Whiskey Cake in Plano. “Andrew doubles down and tells me that he loves me again,” Ms. Dye said.
The two begin hanging out outside of work.
Ms. Dye said that she and Mr. Matt became “inseparable and spent nearly every day together.”
Ms. Dye, who grew up in Portland, Ore., is currently a group fitness instructor at Equinox and a brand manager for the luxury event planning company Pop Parties. She has a bachelor’s degree in French from Arizona State University.
Mr. Matt, originally from Colleyville, Texas, is the valuation and advisory lead for the Americas Services strategic marketing team for Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate company. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma and will begin an M.B.A. program at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business this fall.
Mr. Matt planned to propose on Feb. 9, 2022 during a hike to a waterfall on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, where the couple was on a birthday trip for Ms. Dye’s mother. But, “within minutes, we were covered in mud, trying to navigate our way through the Hawaiian ‘jungle’ until three dogs came barreling toward us,” Ms. Dye said.
The dogs, which they said seemed to come out of nowhere, somehow guided the couple to the waterfall base. “However, to get to the waterfall, you had to basically rappel down the side of this 15-foot drop-off.” Mr. Matt immediately fell to the bottom, suffering some minor scrapes and bruises. He decided then 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 of the ginger ale money could buy, and hoping he wouldn’t lose his lunch,” Ms. Dye said. He held it together, and she said yes.
The couple married April 20 at the Union House, an event space in Cleburne, Texas, with 140 guests attending. Ms. Dye’s friend Elizabeth Furlong, who was ordained by the Universal Life Church for the event, officiated.
The two honored “4/20” with a tattoo artist offering flash tattoos, including marijuana leaf designs. Ms. Dye got two tattoos. “Our wedding date on my arm and our nickname for each other on my left hand — Pookie,” she said.
