Brett’s story
“We have our friends and family to thank for that. They made it really special. I'll remember it forever.”
From Towson, With Love
At TU, thousands of romances, like the one between Brett Cook ’15 and Kelly Cook ’12, have blossomed in dorm rooms, dining halls and at dance parties—no swiping right necessary.
Kelly’s story
We first met at Towson Catholic High School. We were just friends before we re-met at Towson. I came here for undergrad a couple years before Brett, to be a language arts teacher. I taught for seven years before realizing I really loved educational technology, so I got a job in OTS in October 2019.
Working in the Office of Technology Services (OTS) with Brett has been fun. Sometimes if I get locked out of a system or something, I can just shoot him an email and be like, “hey, can you fix this for me?” It’s nice to see him, but there's a distance because we're not exactly in the same work.
Our original wedding plans were to get married on April 18 at the Millstead Center in Harford County. We had invited about 160 people, and we were going to have taco and nacho bars with margaritas. Our wedding party was supposed to be eight on each side, and I think each person went to Towson. Three of the couples in the group met at Towson and are getting married or are married. I still haven’t worn my wedding dress; I got the one I wore for the video wedding on Amazon.
We’ve decided to get married again on Halloween, but I’m glad we had a ceremony now, even if it wasn’t what we planned. We've been together for nine years, and I really was excited. I feel like we had been waiting a long time to get married. So I was like, “no, we're doing it. I don't want to wait anymore.”
Brett’s story
Going into high school, I didn’t know anyone. Kelly and I sat near each other, and she just had the same sense of humor as me, and we liked the same type of nerdy things: Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, stuff like that. We both like to read; we met as freshmen in Honors English.
After high school, I took a year off to work and go to community college. She was a student body president and was like, “I'm going to college; I'm getting all my stuff together.”
After about a year and a half, we reconnected and began dating. She was the still same person. I was drawn to her. She was just caring. She always was hitting me up to hang out. I feel like it was meant to be that we were separate for a couple of years, and we got back together, and just every weekend we were hanging out. I knew I wanted to be with her, and I was hoping she would feel the same way.
I was a little hesitant at first to get married over Zoom, but then I was glad we did it—even in the middle of a pandemic—and it just turned out—what our friends and family did for us, it really meant a lot. They made it really special, and I don't think I'll ever be able to thank them enough for that. Kelly did an amazing job setting up, painting these little white crates and adding this backdrop near our house. I'll remember this forever, I think.
