The Beginning
Lucas and Kellee live in Casper, Wyoming, where they met a year and a half ago. Soon after the start of their relationship, they were in a motor vehicle accident on a cold and snowy Thanksgiving day, which left them both with serious injuries. Due to the injuries, Lucas was in and out of the hospital, missing three months of residency, and Kellee went through complications from her injuries as well. It taught them to stick through life’s toughest challenges together. It also helped them learn the true meaning of heart and grit. Being by each other’s side during the difficult recovery period bonded them together as a couple, despite only having begun dating a few months earlier.
Outdoor Lovers
A love of sustainability and the outdoors connected the two early on. Lucas remembers learning that Kellee loves skiing, backpacking, dogs, and harvesting her own food, and was immediately smitten. They both love that the other one is a good listener, noting that it made it easier to open up and that it established an environment of feeling seen, heard and understood. They also appreciate that they’re both physically active and that they encourage each other to be the best versions of themselves that they can be.
How It Should Feel
It was around New Years when Lucas first thought about proposing to Kellee. He knew that, despite what they had gone through, life with Kellee felt natural, easy and just how it should feel. Looking back on that time he remembers thinking, “I think that this is what I would want my future to look like”. He started looking for a ring right away and called her dad to get his blessing - the old fashioned way. He decided that he wanted to propose on an upcoming trip to Bozeman, Montana, since they’d have their dogs and some of Kellee’s family members present. He proposed at a dog park in Bozeman, getting down on one knee in the soft snow surrounded by their dogs and a snow capped mountain backdrop. A completely surprised Kellee took a second to process but once she realized what was happening, she instantly flipped off her glove and exclaimed, “Absolutely!” Her response is now inscribed in their custom rings.
The Pressure To Get It Right
From the onset of looking for Kellee’s dream engagement ring, Lucas felt an enormous amount of pressure to get it perfect. “There’s a lot of societal pressures, especially with the woman having to wear the ring forever,” Lucas says. He was looking for something with an asymmetrical design. When he first started looking for a custom engagement ring online, he kept running into the same problem - jewelers who claimed to be custom weren’t really that custom at all. They had a few packages that you could mix and match, but they didn’t give him the creative freedom to create a ring completely from scratch. He also found that many who did create engagement rings didn’t do wedding bands, and he needed both.
A True One-of-a-Kind
When he first met with a designer at Wove, he thought he’d run into the same problem again. However, after his first design consultation with Mary Caroline he realized Wove was different. His custom requests, like having three little diamonds in Kellee’s ring plus a matching stone in his ring and a unique band contour, were seamlessly incorporated into his design. He loved being able to see the initial ring sketch and CAD rendering to be able to visualize how the rings would eventually look. He appreciated Wove’s diamond sourcing transparency, noting that ethically made diamonds were an important part of creating the ring for him. With their wedding around the corner, Mary Caroline worked with Lucas to make his rushed timeline happen and get the ring creation done. Although Lucas mostly took the reigns on the project, Kellee infused her style into the process as well! Lucas loves that nobody has Kellee’s unique ring design with the combination of special touches he lovingly added.
The Future
What does the future hold for Lucas and Kellee? Lucas is currently at the University of Wyoming doing his family medicine residency and Kellee practices ambulatory care. They tied the knot on a cold, rainy day this past winter at the Coeur d’Alene Resort in Idaho with their love for each other and their family and friends to keep them warm.
