Casey Lynn Echols and Kyle David Sutton found plenty in common when they matched on Hinge in January 2023.
They were both avid snowboarders, to start. They also loved many of the same bands, including the Grateful Dead and Widespread Panic, and were music critics for their college newspapers. Each had studied journalism and moved to Colorado because of happy memories of childhood visits to grandparents who lived in the state.
“I’d never connected with anyone just like me in every way,” Echols said.
“It was crazy how alike we seemed,” Sutton said.
Both were also intent on finding love.
Sutton had recently moved from Arvada, Colo., to Fort Collins, about an hour from Denver, for his job at the time. He was lonely, he said, and “enthusiastic about finding someone to do this thing called life with.”
Echols, who works as a senior account manager at Grasslands, a public relations company in Denver, lived in the West Washington Park neighborhood of Denver. Her last relationship had ended a year earlier, and she was “looking for someone as adventurous” as her.
They messaged for a few weeks and made a snowboarding date at Copper Mountain in Summit County. Their day started with breakfast at Sunshine Cafe in the nearby town of Silverthorne, where they picked up their online conversation, chatting about music and snowboarding.
“Kyle was hot,” Echols said. “He looks like a blonde Tom DeLonge from Blink-182, my teenage dreamboat, and I was swooning.”
“The first thing I noticed about her was how beautiful and blue her eyes were,” Sutton said. “I knew right away our personalities were going to mesh.”
They headed to the mountain and spent more than half the day riding down the slopes.
“We found out pretty quickly that we both had a pretty deep catalog of movie quotes bouncing around in our heads,” Sutton said. “We laughed and then laughed some more.”
Their date continued with bowling at Elevation Bowl in the town of Dillon. By then, they were finishing each other’s sentences and increasingly certain that the other was their “one.” Dinner at Dillon Dam Brewery followed.
Over 12 hours after they first met up, Sutton drove Echols back to the parking lot at the Sunshine Cafe, where she had left her car.
As they were saying goodbye, he asked if he could kiss her, and they shared what Echols described as “a fairy-tale moment.”
“I lay awake that night thinking about what had transpired,” Sutton said. “I’d never had so much chemistry with someone so fast.”
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Echols, 36, is from Conyers, Ga., and has a bachelor’s degree in public relations from the University of Georgia.
Sutton, 34, grew up in Peoria, Ill. He earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, and works as a sales representative for Glenrock Tile & Stone in Aurora, Colo.
Their relationship kicked into overdrive with endless texting and weekly dates. They listened to their favorite bands at Echols’s home, had regular dinners at Go Fish Sushi and snowboarded together at Winter Park Resort.
In February, a month into dating, Echols went snowboarding with friends at Copper Mountain and fell as she was going off a jump on a terrain park. The accident left her with two broken ribs and a fractured pelvis and kept her in the hospital for two nights.
With no family nearby, she found comfort in Sutton, who stayed by her side, bringing her food, and cans of Diet Coke, her favorite drink. He kept her company as they watched what she called “bad reality TV.”
By early April, Echols had recovered and was ready to snowboard again. “I excitedly went back to Copper Mountain with Kyle but started having a panic attack at the top of the hill,” she said.
“I looked her in the eyes and told her she knew what to do,” Sutton said.
Pushing her fear aside, she rode down the hill, a moment she said brought them even closer together.
By September 2023, Sutton had moved to Denver and into Echols’s home, where they continue to live. The pair became engaged a month later during a weeklong vacation in New Orleans. On Oct. 16, Echols’s 35th birthday, Sutton took her to City Park to see the Anseman Oak, a towering ancient tree. He walked her to the base, dropped to one knee and proposed.
They married Oct. 9 before 110 guests in the courtyard of Hermann-Grima House, a 19th-century museum in the French Quarter of New Orleans. William Craver, a close friend of Echols’ who was ordained by Universal Life Church for the occasion, officiated.
After the ceremony, the newlyweds led their guests in a second line parade to their reception at Broussard’s, a French-Creole restaurant. A brass band played as the crowd danced their way over, sipping champagne and waving handkerchiefs monogrammed with the couple’s first names.
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