Their Wedding Day Became a Local Holiday

Everything seemed to be going wrong when Chase Vaughan Edmunds and Kirby Lynn Matocha met for their first official date at the Houston Zoo on Nov. 16, 2021.

Shortly before reaching the front gate, Mr. Edmunds’s cellphone, which held their digital tickets, died. But the two merely laughed it off. While the phone recharged at the gift shop, they strolled around the nearby reflecting pool and gardens. Then it started to rain. They simply huddled under an archway until it passed, after which they retrieved his then-charged phone.

“We had a lovely time at the zoo,” Ms. Matocha said. “I left home with straight hair and nerves, but returned with curly hair and a serious crush.” Not wanting the date to end, they meandered through the nearby Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and had ice cream at Jeni’s before calling it a day.

Although it was their first official date, they had actually met two weeks before. Mutual friends had set up a dinner at El Tiempo, a Mexican restaurant in Houston, on Sept. 16, 2021, to welcome Mr. Edmunds to the city. He had just relocated from Winston-Salem, N.C., to work for the law firm Bracewell after recently graduating from Wake Forest University School of Law.

“We joke that we fell in love over the fajita smoke,” Ms. Edmunds said.

The following week, the group went out for drinks. Mr. Edmunds left his keys behind at the bar and Ms. Matocha volunteered to return them to him, excited for the opportunity to see him again.

Mr. Edmunds said he didn’t leave them there deliberately. “I wish I was smart enough to lose my keys on purpose,” he said.

That Sunday, they went to the Houston Polo Club, also with friends, to watch a match. Over the next couple of weeks, the pair watched football together and went to a driving range. Soon after, they decided to make their official first date a trip to the zoo.

Six weeks after their first date, Mr. Edmunds asked Ms. Matocha to be his girlfriend.

In January 2023, Ms. Matocha and Mr. Edmunds moved into a new apartment in the same complex in the Heights neighborhood of Houston, where Mr. Edmunds had been living. They continue to live there today.

On March 9, 2024, Mr. Edmunds suggested the two go for a walk and then get oysters at Clark’s Oyster Bar in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston, where he had made reservations. Such a suggestion wasn’t surprising. But what was going to happen certainly was.

“We were late and I still was like, ‘Let’s go for a walk.’ And then I couldn’t find parking,” Mr. Edmunds said. “As we are driving around and around, I was about to just park on the grass and take the ticket or get towed.”

He did finally find a parking spot. “I was walking as fast as I could but at that point she knew and I knew that she knew,” Mr. Edmunds said. All the same, they walked to the very spot by the Mary Gibbs and Jesse H. Jones Reflection Pool in Hermann Park where the two had gotten caught in the rain on their first date.

Under the awning, Mr. Edmunds proposed, and Ms. Matocha said yes.

Ms. Matocha, 26, a Houston native, is an employee benefits consultant at Pacific Life, an insurance agency in Houston. She holds a bachelor’s degree in communication and journalism from Texas A&M University.

Mr. Edmunds, 29, who is from Raleigh, N.C., is an associate lawyer at Bracewell in Houston, specializing in mergers and acquisitions. He graduated from Clemson University with a bachelor’s degree in political science and received a law degree from Wake Forest University School of Law.

[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]

The couple were wed on Feb. 15 at St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church in Houston by the Rev. Peter Wood, Ms. Matocha’s family priest. “I went to elementary and middle school at St. Michael,” she said. Adding that she “used to pray in the pews” that she would win a third-grade math game called minute math “and for my future husband.”

The couple even included a minute math sheet in the wedding program for their 290 guests. “We printed it as a wink to the full-circle moment,” Ms. Matocha said.

A reception at the Houstonian Hotel, Club and Spa followed, where hundreds of red roses hung from the ceiling. “It was unreal and smelled amazing,” Ms. Matocha said.

The Mayor of Houston, John Whitmire, attended the ceremony and declared Feb. 15 “Kirby and Chase Day.” Ms. Matocha was a page for him when she was in elementary school and assisted him with a fund-raiser when she was an adult.

As a surprise to the groom, the bride performed a D.J. set for him. “The mix was six months in the making,” Ms. Matocha said. “It was so special to lock eyes with Chase and sing to him while dancing to our favorite songs that described Houston, Raleigh, Clemson, Texas A&M and our love.”