Hello to all of our friends and family,

Thank you for stopping by, and for wanting to be a part of the celebration of our marriage! We love and appreciate you all!

Our relationship began as a joke, five years ago, amongst our friend group. Our friends decided a whole year before we even met each other, that we were destined to be married because of our shared love of ice cream and Lord of the Rings; which is very ironic now since we don't eat ice cream anymore on account of it not sitting well with one of us (not naming names so she doesn't feel embarrassed now that everyone knows dairy makes her have diarrhea).

Eventually we did meet, we became friends, and then we fell in love and lived happily ever after!

Just kidding! We actually remained just friends for another year. Then, on one fateful night in late January of 2016, because of some tricky behavior from our friends, we had our first real conversation since we had met. This conversation ended up lasting six hours, and ended with us both walking away knowing we had found our soulmate (super corny, we know, but it really happened)!

We had our first date the day before Valentine's Day, started spending practically every day together, and then we officially became boyfriend and girlfriend on March 3, 2016. This is generally the part where people put, "And the rest was history," but we aren't quite there yet folks (all of this backstory is relevant, we promise)!

We then moved in together over Memorial Day weekend; and yes, for those of you that are still reading this, that was only two months into our relationship. When we said we knew we were soulmates, we really meant it. (This next part is where all of this backstory becomes relevant)

This coming May marks three years of us living together. Three years of accumulating all of the things we need; and since we both practice and value minimalism, we truly mean that we have everything that we need. Below you will find a Couples Shower Registry (the West Elm link on the registry tab) with some fun "wants", but as far as toasters, blenders, and pots and pans are concerned, we are all set!

We mention all of this because we know that it is customary to register for things, but since we already have all of the things that we need, we have decided to register for something different; we have decided to register for our future.

What we mean by that is we have two major financial goals that we are trying to achieve as soon as possible in order to start our marriage with as much financial peace as possible: 1) Save up for a down payment for a house, and 2) Pay off our student loans. For our wedding, your presence is a present, but if you can find it in your heart (and your wallet) to give us a gift of any kind, a contribution to either of those goals would be what we would appreciate the most! Knowing that the people that we love most in this world helped our dreams come true would truly be the greatest gift we could receive!

And for those of you that are wondering, "Are you going to go on a honeymoon?", after the wedding we will be taking a few days off from work to have a mini-moon of sorts; where we will get to relax in our own home with our beloved cat Lady, pamper ourselves with some spa treatments, and have as much fun as we can locally to unwind after the months of stress and planning it took to get to our hopefully beautiful and amazing wedding day. This would also be something that we would appreciate a contribution to as well.

Thank you so much for loving us and for being a part of our lives! We hope to see you on March 3rd, but if we don't, please still have a glass of something sparkly and toast to a day that has been five years in the making, a love that will last a lifetime, and the best group of family and friends we could have ever imagined.

All our love,

Megan and Paul (soon-to-be) Kastenbauer