Northern Kentucky couple Elise Curtis and Wyatt Dalbey have the opportunity of a lifetime: to have their wedding paid for.
The current Northern Kentucky University seniors are finalists in a contest organized by local businesses in Madison, Indiana, to fund a couple’s wedding. They are one of five couples in the running, with the winner being announced on Christmas Eve, making this the ultimate Christmas present.
Curtis, a Randall K. Cooper High School graduate, and Dalbey, a Connor High School graduate, had to submit a video of themselves talking about their love story and their connection to Madison, Indiana. The entry was then reviewed by a panel of judges, who selected the couple as finalists.
Now it is up to the public to decide a winner.
The couple met when they were teenagers. Curtis rode horses at one of the local boarding facilities through the 4H Drill Team, which she was on with Dalbey’s little sister. Dalbey would pick up his sister from the facility and joked that he would make a trip inside every once in a while to talk to “some people.”
As Gen Z does, Curtis added Dalbey on Instagram, and later Dalbey texted Curtis his opening line, “How much does a polar bear weigh?” She responded that she didn’t know, and Dalbey said, “Enough to break the ice. How are you doing?”
“It was like the dumbest, corniest thing, but every anniversary since then, I’ve gotten her a polar bear,” Dalbey said.
The couple discussed their first date in the video, which did not go as planned. Dalbey got a concussion and had to go to the hospital the week before their date. Then the doctor told him he couldn’t drive for two weeks, so Curtis had to pick him up. Then they found out that Dalbey had bought tickets to the wrong movie theater, so they ended up just getting ice cream and driving around talking all night, which they said they actually preferred.
The couple will celebrate their fourth anniversary on Dec. 21. They got engaged on May 12.
Some couples submitted their proposal video as part of their entry, but Curtis and Dalbey said their engagement was more spur-of-the-moment.
Dalbey had met with Curtis’ mom and dad to ask for their permission to marry her and had gone to the jewelry store with her best friend to buy the perfect ring.
All that was left to do was propose. So, Dalbey started always hiding the ring somewhere on him or near him, waiting for the perfect moment.
“I was thinking of putting it on our puppy’s collar-I just had 100 ideas, but none of them felt right, and none of them felt like they would go the way that fits us best,” he said.
One night, the couple was driving home after having dinner, and the ring was in the backseat underneath a sweatshirt. The whole drive, they were talking about proposals, but said they were joking around.
“I told him I didn’t think it was happening anytime soon because he wasn’t nervous enough,” Curtis said.
Dalbey said he got out of the car and got down on one knee, all contorted, and told her to critique him. Curtis told him to act as if he were actually proposing. Little did she know the ring was right under his sweatshirt, so he did propose right there in the driveway.
“I thought it was fake,” Curtis said. “He didn’t open the box immediately, so I was like, ‘Oh, it’s just like an old jewelry box.’”
The pair learned they were finalists on Dec. 5. Dalbey said they were supposed to receive an email before the public announcement, but never did, so they didn’t think they had made it to the finals.
“I checked my email every day, morning, every night,” he said. “I was like, I’m the only person in our generation who every two hours or three hours is checking my email for something new. The fifth rolls around, and we don’t hear anything, nothing in my email. I even re-submitted the video on the very last day, just to make sure the video went through and the email was correct.”
The contest is valued at $25,000. The full list of prizes the couple would win is available on the contest website and includes everything from the venue to a full photography package. The winner must get married on June 13, 2026, which coincidentally is only a week before Curtis and Dalbey planned to get married.
Dalbey’s family owns a farm five minutes from Madison, and the couple said they spend time there a lot. Dalbey’s father is the one who found the contest on Facebook and told the couple about it.
Curtis and Dalbey have been spreading the word across social media, including Facebook groups and word of mouth to family and friends, to garner votes. Dalbey even had an NKU professor put it on the board for his classmates to vote. However, because of the number of people voting multiple times a day, Curtis said the contest reset everyone’s votes to zero, so they have to start over. To vote, you must enter a valid email address and can only vote one time per day.
Find out more information about the contest and vote for Curtis and Dalbey here.