“You weren’t kidding when you said you were walking a little slow,” Katelyn Ann Yeary recalls telling Kevin Ashok Rustagi when he showed up on crutches on their first date.
It was December 2019, a few days after they connected through the dating app Coffee Meets Bagel. Though his profile made no mention of it, Mr. Rustagi had his foot crushed in a motorcycle accident not long before their appointments at the Cartel Coffee Lab in Austin, Texas.
Mrs. Yeary, 31, held the door open for Mr. Rustagi, 33, as he stumbled into the coffee shop. As someone who prided himself on arranging “James Bond-esque dates” with airplanes, motorcycles and his silver BMW convertible, Mr Rustagi said the accident forced him to “be normal” when choosing an activity.
“I didn’t have my superpowers,” added Mr. Rustagi, who is a graduate of MIT and holds an MBA and master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford.
As they sat talking over tea for two hours, he told Mrs. Yeary that he loved to sing and play guitar and keyboard in his 100-square-foot apartment. At one point, he pulled out a black Moleskin notebook and sketched out a design of the music room he envisioned for his dream home.
When he was done, she sketched out some plants.
“I had all the butterfly vibes,” said Ms. Yeary, who graduated summa cum laude from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is program director of the Ballet Austin Academy, where she teaches ballet technique to 6-to-12 year olds.
“I love art,” said Mr. Rustagi, director of business development at Lift Aircraft, an Austin-based company that specializes in electric flying vehicles. “Katelyn appealed to that in me both intellectually and creatively.”
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Later that day, they grabbed tacos across the street at Lazarus Brewing Company, where he playfully tried to hold her hand during thumb wrestling and a handflip game. When he asked if he could kiss her, Mrs. Yeary said, “I want to wait.”
That Christmas, they spoke and texted while Ms. Yeary went to visit her family in Beaumont, Texas, where she grew up, and Mr. Rustagi spent time with his sister and mother, who were visiting from his native Houston.
Just before the New Year, the two had a second date, driving through the Texas Hill Country in his convertible with the roof down. Before the ride came their first kiss. They also, as Mr. Rustagi put it, “went down the list” and discussed “children, religion and spirituality.” They were on the same page about everything.
Soon after, they became exclusive. She introduced him to her small church group, and on Valentine’s Day in 2020, they attended a performance of Balanchine’s “Rubies” by Ballet Austin.
When Covid started, the couple created what they both called a “pandemic bubble” and spent time at each other’s homes. Mr Rutsagi, who is Indian on his father’s side, often cooked his specialty chicken with Indian spices on his two-by-four meter balcony.
For her birthday in May, he made her a chocolate cake and performed “Katelyn’s Song,” which he wrote for the occasion. The next day they said to each other, “I love you.”
A proposal came in August 2021, while the two were out for a walk in Austin’s Mayfield Park. When Mr. Rustagi got on one knee by a 150-year-old cypress overlooking the Colorado River, Mrs. Yearly knelt to hug him, said “yes,” and handed him a map.
In it she had written, “I think you could imagine it today,” along with a quote from the Biblical Song of Songs: “I have found the one whom my soul loves.”
On March 6, they married at Wish Well House, an event space in Georgetown, Texas. The Rev. Larry Coulter, the pastor of Lakeway Church in Lakeway, Texas, performed for 180 guests, all of whom were asked to conduct rapid Covid tests before the event.
During the ceremony, the flower girl, one of the bride’s ballet students, danced up and down the aisle to Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Later, at the reception, the groom sang a song he wrote for the occasion.
“We will share together the words of our soul,” he sang.
