REAL-WEDDINGS

Real Columbus Wedding: Courtney and Kyle Napierala

For these college sweethearts, a day full of meaning and memorable moments

Columbus Monthly

Courtney and Kyle Napierala married on Sept. 3, 2022, at Magnolia Hill Farm.

Sept. 3, 2023 | College sweethearts Courtney (Armpriester) and Kyle Napierala met the old-fashioned way: as neighbors in their apartment complex at Ohio University. “Kyle organized a massive game of swim-flip-cup and recruited me on his team,” Courtney remembers. Their friendship blossomed over shared plates of chili cheese fries on the walk home from the bars lining Court Street and poolside hangouts after class. After spending the summer apart, the two decided to make things “Facebook official” and haven’t looked back since.

Kyle got a little sneaky with his proposal, five years after they met.

“I had planned a picnic on the Scioto Mile with a company called The Picnic Diaries, where they set up your picnic for you,” Courtney says. “Kyle organized for his family to come down from Rochester, New York, and they and my parents basically hid behind some bushes, waiting for him to ask.” When he did, he handed Courtney a letter before dropping to one knee.

The letter wasn’t an isolated incident, Courtney says, and the theme reappeared on their wedding day. “Kyle and I also have what is becoming a tradition of writing each other letters before big moments in our lives, so Kyle and I wrote each other a letter that we left for each other to read as we got ready,” she explains.

When asked what she remembers most about the wedding, Courtney points to an unexpected moment just after the ceremony. “The bridesmaids and groomsmen started to gather at cocktail hour, and Kyle and I had a minute alone in the lobby to hold each other and just feel the wave of relief and excitement that we were finally married,” she says.

Also memorable, if less serious, were the final few seconds before her processional, as she and her father waited to walk down the aisle together.

“He's not typically a man of many words, but he leaned over to me as told me that I looked beautiful and started to get choked up,” she recalls. “Then he said, ‘Jeez, I'm not telling you that again tonight.’ It made me laugh and was a beautiful, tender moment.”

Of course, those were just two among “so, so many” wonderful moments of the day, Courtney adds. “The day truly went about as perfectly as I could have dreamed.”