Before Hayden Elizabeth Field ever laid eyes on Cody Michael Clegg, she had already heard a few intriguing facts about him: He played the guitar, he could beat-box and he had taught himself Japanese.
Clegg, the new student in their graduating class at a small, private school in Atlanta, was something of a mystery to Field, then 15, who had attended the school since she was 3. Despite their small class size, she somehow went three days without even getting a peek at him.
But Clegg had noticed her. “I do remember walking by her in the hallway,” he said. “She had a bubbly and kind energy.”
Weeks after his first day in August 2008, the two had their first conversation. Mutual friends had told them they had to meet because they shared two very specific interests — chips and salsa and “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
Still, Field hadn’t been in a rush. “I wasn’t trying super hard to talk to him,” she said. “Other girls were already after him.”
Once they did talk, “we felt comfortable around each other right away,” she said.
The two later discovered that their September birthdays are one day apart and that they were both born at Northside Hospital in Atlanta. Their mothers had even interacted. “Cody’s mom said she remembered my mom showing her where the best snacks were in the maternity ward,” Field said.
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Field and Clegg would talk occasionally in the halls at school or on Facebook, but that was about it until senior year, when Field asked Clegg to the homecoming dance. “He seemed sweet and fun,” she said, and she needed a date.
“I was so shy,” Clegg said. “I didn’t even want to go to a single dance. But when Hayden asked, I was like, this is the one person that I would have a great time with.”
The plan was to go as friends, but the night quickly took a romantic turn. While at dinner with more than 25 people, Field said, “It felt like the whole room fell away.”
“It was the most absorbed in conversation I’ve ever been,” Clegg added.
Although Clegg was a self-proclaimed non-dancer, the two danced the night away. And the next morning, they both changed their Facebook profile photos to a photo they had taken together.
Soon after, Clegg began giving Field guitar lessons. She had mentioned she was interested in learning — a white lie to allow them to spend more time together.
The ruse worked. By March 2011, the two were a couple.
After graduation, Field attended the University of Georgia, and Clegg headed to Georgia Institute of Technology. With only a 90-minute drive separating them, they saw one another every month or so and talked on the phone daily.
But after college, the issue of being truly long-distance faced the pair. Field was heading to New York to pursue journalism, and Clegg to Augusta, Ga., for a job as a manufacturing engineer.
Still, Field said, “If it’s ‘the one,’ you don’t have a choice.” The two continued to visit each other nearly every month and talk on the phone every day. “It was hard,” he said. “But it was just how we needed to do it.”
Neither doubted that they had found their person. In fact, Field said, “It helped us love each other as exactly who we are.”
Finally, in September 2019, the two moved in together in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where they still live today.
In February 2025, Field’s father, Charles Danforth Field III, passed away suddenly following a stroke. Clegg supported Field tirelessly, she said. Clegg was grateful that he was able to ask Field’s father’s permission to marry her months before he was hospitalized.
Clegg proposed on June 14, 2025. “I knew she wanted to be in a lively place, and I wanted to be in the mountains,” Clegg said. So he scoured New York City by scooter looking for the perfect location. Then he remembered the rooftop event venue at Rockefeller Center, 610 Loft & Garden, which both had fallen in love with after seeing it on the television series “White Collar.”
“It’s nature-y, but you can hear the city,” Clegg said. Field showed up thinking she was to be a friend’s plus at an event. But, “when she came off the elevator, it was just me,” Clegg said. He dropped to one knee. She said yes.
Field, 34, is the senior A.I. reporter at The Verge. She earned dual bachelor degrees in magazine journalism and theater.
Clegg, 34, is a senior software engineer at an online meal subscription service. He holds a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering.
The couple married on Oct. 17 at the Piedmont Garden Tent in Atlanta. Thomas Hughes, Clegg’s uncle, who was ordained by American Marriage Ministries, officiated before 147 guests.
The highlight of the night, Clegg said, was seeing Field come down the aisle. “I waited 15 years to see that sight. The wait was worth every minute.”
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