Rylee & Brendan
Rylee & Brendan

We're getting married!

Rylee Cisney
&
Brendan Stough

September 26th 2026
Riviera Maya Mexico
597 Days to go

The Story of Us

Brendan and Rylee met for the first time in October of 2020 right after Rylee's 21st birthday. They hung out for a few months before going their separate ways and deciding to be on their own for a while. 

In March of 2021, Brendan reached out to Rylee again, but she turned him down... oops. But then, two weeks later, Rylee had a dream about Brendan and decided to reach out to him. THANKFULLY, he didn't turn her down (or you wouldn't be reading this right now) and they started seeing each other again right after Brendan's birthday and the rest is history! 

We officially began dating on June 26th, 2021 after Brendan planned a real date to the movies in Morgantown. We did not get to celebrate our first Christmas together because Rylee got COVID on a trip to Puerto Rico, but Brendan decided it was time to make our relationship Facebook official that day! However, we did get to celebrate New Years Eve together and shared our first New Years kiss of many. Our first Valentine's Day was extra special with a night spent in Pittsburgh and Brendan FINALLY confessing that he loved Rylee for the first time!

In May 2022, Rylee graduated from WVU and we went on a trip to the west coast with Rylee's parents and that was the first time Brendan flew on an airplane! We had the best first vacation together, created so many memories, and sparked Brendan's new found love for traveling. 

In August 2022, there were some big moves and uncertainties as Rylee moved to Pittsburgh for graduate school and Brendan moved to Greensburg to begin his undergraduate journey. This was the farthest we lived apart since we began dating and there were big changes in our careers but we became anchors for each other as we navigated these next steps in life. This time in our relationship consisted of trips to Pittsburgh or Greensburg every weekend to see each other and eventually meeting in Monroeville every Wednesday night for date nights. A big highlight of our weeks through difficult course work and long work hours.

For our first big trip together, and Brendan's first international trip, we flew to Ireland to visit Rylee's friends from study abroad over winter break in 2022-2023. We flew to Dublin, traveled on the AirCoach bus (IYKYK) down to Cork, Ireland where Rylee studied abroad! We stayed in a treehouse airBNB for our first night there (this comes up later, so don't forget) and explored the city. We hung out with Rylee's friends and went to all the old pubs to celebrate NYE. After NYE, we traveled back up to Dublin and took some trips to Northern Ireland and Kilkenny. Even though this trip included Rylee getting food poisoning from oysters and Brendan cracking a tooth, it was the best trip we could have ever had. This trip made us realize that we wanted to keep traveling together and for the first time realizing we wanted to keep experiencing things together for the rest of our lives. 

Brendan kept working hard in his classes and achieved a GPA high enough to transfer to the University of Pittsburgh, Greensburg campus, the next step to get his engineering degree. In fall 2023, Brendan started classes at Pitt Greensburg in hopes to transfer to Pitt main campus, where Rylee is, by the next fall semester. 

In February 2024, Rylee and Brendan signed a lease together for an apartment in Shadyside, Pittsburgh that would start in July. At this point, it was uncertain if Brendan would be transferring to Pitt main campus for the rest of his engineering degree, but we made the leap anyway, knowing we wanted to move in together and put an end to all the weekend trips. Fortunately, in May 2024, at the end of the semester we found out Brendan got the 3.0GPA he needed to transfer to Pittsburgh and everything started falling into place!
Rylee really wanted to be engaged before the move in happened so it became a topic of serious discussion, which Brendan eventually shut down and said if it is going to happen, it needs to be a surprise. 

Rylee's best friend (and maid of honor and officiant) Emma took her to get her nails done very suspiciously in mid July. Rylee made a passing comment like "I better get engaged in these nails" thinking it nothing but a joke... but Emma took it very seriously and told Brendan who then moved the engagement date up much sooner. 

Brendan and Emma began scheming to plan the most amazing engagement day for Rylee. They met up one weekend (Rylee was suspicious because if she was not hanging out with one of them then what would she be doing?) and secretly planned some of the details. 
Rylee moved into the new apartment in late June 2024 as her other lease was ending, but Brendan did not plan to move in until the last weekend of July as his lease didn't end until August. Brendan was set to move in Saturday, July 27th. But, when Rylee woke up on Friday morning she had this feeling the engagement was going to happen that weekend, well before any suspicious text messages were sent from Brendan such as, "My mom wants to go to brunch before we move on Saturday. She found some new place she wants to go." and "My mom also wants pictures of us in our new apartment so make sure you bring a nice dress to wear." hmm... very suspicious Brendan...

Turns out... Brendan's mom did not find a new place to go to brunch or want to take pictures of us in our new apartment. But, Brendan did find a treehouse restaurant (that reminded Rylee of the treehouse airBNB that we spent a night at in Ireland) with private treehouses for brunch and popped the big question! Of course Rylee said yes after many happy tears and we celebrated with brunch. Rylee assumed we would go back to moving, but Brendan had other plans, including plans for the entire day! Photos at Phipps with Emma, indoor minigolf at Puttery and then dinner at Roland's in the Strip with Emma and Steve, and then the final stop of the night was the hotel we stayed in for that first Valentine's day where Brendan first said I love you. Brendan created the most special engagement day Rylee could ever dream of. 

Brendan moved into the apartment the next day and we have been enjoying living together ever since. 

We are so excited to continue living our lives together and supporting each other through the hardships that life throws at us. Wedding planning was proving to be one big challenge and we decided to alleviate the stress of a DIY stateside wedding for a more relaxed option that will allow us to spend the most time with our closest friends and family so we are so excited to be tying the knot at the most beautiful all-inclusive resort in Riviera Maya, Mexico and to have you all join us to experience and support the beginning of the rest of our lives.

 We hope you all can make it, but we understand if it is too far of a trip but you will be in our hearts. Other events will be held in many different locations to hopefully accommodate everyone to celebrate our marriage including an engagement party and bridal shower.