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Katherine Bonneau was charmed by Mikhail Kosyan’s ability to be himself, along with his sense of humor and thoughtfulness. They were engaged after seven months.
Katherine Bonneau had grown tired of dating “Peter Pan-type guys” over the years, she said, so on her first date with Mikhail Kosyan, she asked him about his plans for the future — specifically whether he was ready to have children.
“He wasn’t scared off by my directness,” said Ms. Bonneau, 32, adding that she didn’t want to waste her time on someone “not ready for this next step.”
“I had the nicknames for three children ready to go,” said Mr. Kosyan, 35. “Gator, Rowdy and Boss.”
The two met on the dating app Hinge in April 2021. After weeks of messaging, Mr. Kosyan invited Ms. Bonneau to dinner at Bistro Vendôme in downtown Denver the following month.
For their second date, about a week later, he took her to Grandma’s House, a brewery also in Denver, where they painted gnomes. He drew a heart on his figurine and wrote Ms. Bonneau’s initials inside.
The third time they met, Mr. Kosyan, who is Armenian-Ukrainian and was born in Sochi, in what was then known as the Soviet Union, wore a red Adidas tracksuit and a gold chain.
Ms. Bonneau said she was charmed by his unapologetic ability to be himself, and by his humor.
In conversations, they learned that family was deeply important to both of them and that they shared a strong work ethic.
“We’re both very calculated, very driven,” she said.
After graduating from Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif., with a bachelor’s degree in government, Ms. Bonneau worked in public relations in Los Angeles and New York. In 2016, she moved back to Denver, where she had grown up, and opened her own firm, Bon Communications.
“She’s tireless,” Mr. Kosyan said.
He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder and now works as a senior algorithm engineer at Outside Analytics, a software services company based in Broomfield, Colo.
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As she got to know Mr. Kosyan, Ms. Bonneau noticed how attentive he was to both her and others. During the summer of 2021, she traveled often, and every time she arrived back in Denver, Mr. Kosyan picked her up from the airport with snacks, packets of vitamin C, sparkling water or dinner from Chipotle. That August, when Ms. Bonneau and her brother, Stephen Bonneau, returned from a trip to Maine, Mr. Kosyan arrived at the airport with granola bars for her brother and a treat for Ms. Bonneau’s poodle, Stella.
“He’s consistent, he’s kind, he’s always thinking of others without any sort of ulterior motive,” Ms. Bonneau said. His gestures made her realize early on that he would someday be her husband.
Mr. Kosyan fell in love just as fast. “Her energy is amazing,” he said. He was so excited about their budding relationship that he couldn’t resist sharing his feelings with everyone around him. “I started referring to her as my girlfriend at work and to friends way early on,” he said. “She didn’t even know about it. I forgot to communicate that part.”
On Christmas 2021, about seven months after their first date, they were engaged. “It was a super quick timeline,” Ms. Bonneau said. But the pacing felt right.
“We’re not impulsive people,” Ms. Bonneau said. “The fact that it was so fast was out of character for us.” Past dating experiences, however, had helped them realize what they wanted — and didn’t want — from a partner.
“We both dated plenty,” she said. “We both knew what we were looking for. Not a single person in our life thought it was fast. I think everyone was like, ‘What’s taking so long? Get engaged already.’”
For both, approval from their families was imperative.
Mr. Kosyan immigrated to the United States from Russia with his parents when he was 11, after the family received a visa through the Diversity Visa Program, informally referred to as a “green card lottery.” They settled in Denver, though most of his relatives, with the exception of an aunt in Las Vegas, remain in Russia and Abkhazia, a breakaway autonomous republic of Georgia.
Mr. Kosyan’s mother, Tamara Feshchenko, said she never expected her son to introduce a woman to her and her husband unless he planned to marry her. So when he called to say he had met someone in the spring of 2021, she was both excited and nervous.
“I was so afraid, if I see red flags, how am I going to deliver the news to my child?” she said. But “my panic just dissipated,” she said, when she met Ms. Bonneau in August 2021 at a flooring store where her son was looking at options for his new apartment.
“She stole my heart,” Ms. Feshchenko said. Her husband, Antranik Kosyan, described Ms. Bonneau as “the missing piece of the puzzle in our lives.”
“His parents told me they loved me well before Mikhail did,” Ms. Bonneau said.
His “I love you” would come five months after their first date while the couple were visiting Aspen, Colo., for a rugby match. The ski resort town holds a special place in Ms. Bonneau’s heart. As a child, she and her family spent numerous weekends visiting her maternal grandparents there.
Ms. Bonneau’s parents were equally welcoming when they met Mr. Kosyan at a family barbecue that August. “It reminded us a lot of our relationship, where on our first date we went home and told our friends that we met the person we were going to marry,” said Ms. Bonneau’s mother, Pam Bonneau.
Mr. Kosyan proposed to Ms. Bonneau on Christmas Day last year at her family’s Denver house. Her parents and brother were there, and his parents, who work in the medical field — his mother is an ultrasonographer and his father is a surgical assistant — joined via FaceTime as a Covid-19 precaution. Together, they watched as Mr. Kosyan got down on one knee. He and Ms. Bonneau were wearing matching pajama sets, which were decorated in gnomes in reference to their second date and were a gift from Ms. Bonneau’s mother.
“He was there in his goofy pajamas, all 6 foot 4 of him,” said Al Bonneau, her father. “He was reduced to a puddle as he got down on one knee.”
The couple were married Aug. 7 at the Little Nell hotel in Aspen, about 11,200 feet above sea level, in front of 160 guests, whom they asked to be vaccinated. The bride’s brother led the self-solemnizing ceremony.
The wedding honored both sides of the family. The bride and groom smashed plates at the altar during the ceremony, a tradition in Armenia that symbolizes new beginnings, and served mini lobster rolls as an appetizer in a nod to Maine, where the bride’s father’s family lives. The mothers of the bride and groom read “Blessing for a Marriage,” a poem by James Dillet Freeman, in English and in Russian during the ceremony.
When the dancing began, Ms. Bonneau and Mr. Kosyan surprised everyone by changing into Adidas tracksuits, an outfit that became popular in Eastern Europe in the ’90s and is a favorite among Mr. Kosyan’s friends and family. “Every time his dad comes over to our house he’s wearing head-to-toe jacket, pants, shoes, hat — all matching,” Ms. Bonneau said.
Ms. Bonneau’s entire extended family made it to the wedding, but most of Mr. Kosyan’s relatives were unable to journey to Colorado from Russia and Abkhazia, in part because of travel restrictions put in place by Europe and the United States in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Instead, Mr. Kosyan’s side was represented by “cousins,” a reference to his close friends in the local Armenian community.
When Mr. Kosyan’s family first arrived in Denver, his parents, who had worked as doctors in Moscow, were unable to practice medicine and struggled to make ends meet. As they worked to resume their careers and provide for their only child, Mr. Kosyan built a circle of close friends who became like family.
During the reception, a section of music was dedicated to the Armenians, a combination of European pop hits and traditional songs. Ms. Bonneau said Mr. Kosyan rehearsed his dance moves for months. “He started practicing before we were engaged,” she said.
And his “cousins,” Ms. Feshchenko, the groom’s mother, said, “brought fire to the dance floor. They were so energetic.”
“Everybody started dancing around them,” the groom’s father added. “It was so beautiful. It was a mix of cultures, languages, people, personalities and everything made one whole piece.”
On This Day
When Aug. 7, 2022
Where The Little Nell, Aspen, Colo.
A Tall Warning Because the wedding deck at the Little Nell has an elevation of around 11,200 feet, the bride and groom sent out emails to guests, warning that the altitude is “no joke.” “We told people to be mindful of their drinking because it really does hit harder,” Ms. Bonneau said.
The Journey Home For the gondola ride from the venue back down, Ms. Bonneau and Mr. Kosyan provided blankets, hot chocolate and doughnuts. “It was dead quiet and super dark except for the lights below,” Ms. Bonneau said. “It was a lovely way to end the night.”
Jewelry For the Bride An Armenian custom is for the groom’s mother to give the bride jewelry. One of the pieces Ms. Feshchenko gifted Ms. Bonneau was a gold horseshoe ring with inlaid diamonds that she has owned since the groom was 5. “She always wanted to give it to her daughter-in-law,” Ms. Bonneau said.
