Krista Pulie of Trumbull, Connecticut, and Brent Hopkins of Cranston, Rhode Island, are set to wed July 9, 2021 at Quidnessett Country Club.
How We Met
My best friend Caroline was getting married in the fall of 2018, so for her bachelorette weekend all the girls rented an apartment in Block Island,for that August. Upon our arrival, we learned from the landlord that in the apartment above us was a group of guys on their annual guys’ trip. We went about our bachelorette activities as planned, until our Saturday event of banana boating was brought to a halt due to a thunderstorm that abruptly rolled in. Earlier that morning, as I was bringing back some groceries and must-have bagels from down the street, the guys were out in the yard and shared their plans of spending the day at Ballard’s with me, asking if we wanted to join them. Of course we used that as our back-up plan since we couldn’t be out on the water during a crazy summer storm. We spent the entire day with the guys at Ballard’s and then someone in our group knew the man who had his beautiful yacht parked next to where we spent the whole day. We continued to party on his boat until dark, dancing in the rain and witnessing Caroline on another level I did not know she had, doing a fabulous broom dance on the dock. Mind you, the cooler seats on the boat were filled with bottles of Rosé. I will leave it at that. At some point, Brent’s hat went overboard, and I went head-first off the side of the boat with my ankles being held to save it.
Fast forward to after dinner and a night of dancing at Yellow Kittens Tavern, me, Brent, his friend, Cheeks, and a few of the girls are all in our kitchen talking until about four in the morning. This entire time now, Brent has been looking at me and showering me with compliments, everything someone in a long-term relationship at the time with someone back home knows should not be happening. When it was time to say goodbye, it was the toughest goodbye I ever made. We did not want to say the words knowing we probably would never see each other again. Brent told me he was going to leave me his phone number “just in case.”
Just in that one day spent together I felt like I had known this guy my entire life. When you hear “the stars were aligned” or talk about soulmates, as corny as it sounds, I am now a firm believer in all of them. When you know, you know! That night I could not sleep at all. My heart was racing and my mind was going a million miles an hour. At 5:30 a.m., when I thought it was a good time to give up trying to sleep, I checked the front door to see if Brent actually left his number. Sure enough, he did. It was taped to the glass door saying:
Krista, You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. here’s my number, just in case. — Brent’
I honestly am surprised I didn’t explode from excitement. I immediately gave it to one of the girls to hold onto because God forbid I bring it home to where I had been living with my boyfriend at the time. We took a puddle jumper flight back to Westerly, dropped Caroline’s sister in-law off at the train station in New London, and then I made my dreaded drive back to Vermont, still thinking about Brent. I told myself I needed to stop thinking about him by the time I reached the state line. Well, that clearly never happened. I pulled off the highway, got a Diet Coke and fries from McDonald’s— something I would never normally do—and took out my phone to look him up on Instagram since I never saved his number in my phone. Somehow I find him and messaged him. Not sure exactly what I said, but that is the moment I decided what I knew I needed to do: break up with the guy I was with and move out. Mind you, this was all happening at the start of a new job I was meant to starts the next day. No joke, my heart rate was consistently above 120 bpm the first few days. (Yes, I checked my Fitbit history to confirm). I am surprised I did not have a heart attack—I just could not calm myself down. It must have been because I met the love of my life and knew it was the start of something amazing for the rest of our lives. This is what cloud nine feels like. I felt like I was living in a fairy tail—everything from that point on went seamless. I seemed to have (in my mind) all the perfect answers to education-based questions in my new staff orientation, had the best rides on my thoroughbred mare that I have ever had, had daily FaceTime calls with Brent after work, and even got a call from someone in Block Island who found (by metal detecting) my wallet that had washed out to sea that first day we were there. I can’t leave out that my sister was getting married the next weekend! I got in some trouble from my mom since I wouldn’t shut up about my new love interest when it was supposed to be all about my sister…sorry Vic! I even attempted to say a speech about love, so unlike me. It wasn’t pretty, to say the least!
What’s really crazy to me though, as if all of us staying in the same house wasn’t enough that weekend, is the timing. We originally were going to have Caroline’s bachelorette party on a different weekend, and Brent was supposed to only be there for Friday night since he had a baseball game back on the mainland Saturday afternoon. It got cancelled due to the storm though! Like I always say, everything happens for a reason.
Fast forward again, we did the long distance relationship thing for the first year, then I moved down to my parents’ in Connecticut. That September Brent and I moved in together and then got engaged the following summer! I would have said yes to him if he had asked me two weeks after I met him, but he wanted to wait and not rush things. So we got engaged during a pandemic! Now fingers crossed we can all get vaccinated and have our dream wedding this July!
Our Proposal Story
Brent proposed to me on Burton Baker Beach in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, where I have been going with my family since I was born. We were on vacation for the week, staying at my Poppa and Grandma’s (who are no longer with us), called Watch Point. Brent, my family and I had just gotten back from a long walk. At the time, Brent’s soccer team was playing on TV and at half-time he asked me to go walk down to the beach with him…
I knew something was up. Number one, he never asks me to go on walks. Two, we would be missing the second half of the Liverpool game. Well, of course I agreed to go walk to the beach (just down the road). When we got there, it was high tide and the water was right up to the walls. The only way to get to dry sand was to wade through the waist-high water. I don’t think Brent said a word this entire time. I was just trailing behind trying to keep up with him, wondering why he had taken his phone in the water. We got to land and he did not waste any time.
He got down on one knee and asked me to marry him! I said yes to spending the rest of my life with him and could not be happier.
