Young couple celebrate first Valentine's Day as husband and wife

LAKELAND - Kate Burman and Jon Lamkin celebrated their first Valentine’s Day as husband and wife this weekend.

The Cold Lake couple fell in love and had their wedding last summer. Burman says it was the most beautiful day of their lives.

The 26-year-old met her future husband five years ago when a mutual friend invited them both to his birthday party. Everyone met at a Best Buy parking lot so they could carpool to the party destination … except their friend already had plans to get Burman and Lamkin together.

“Our friend said, ‘Everyone can fit into my car, except Jon. You’re going to have to go with Kate,’ (The friend’s) place is out in the middle of the country, so we ended up getting lost,” said Burman, explaining that the hours together gave them a great way to chat and get to know each other. “We hit it off, and I drove Jon home.”

Lamkin’s house was in an unfamiliar part of town so he gave Burman his phone number in case she got lost heading home. He texted her the next day and the relationship started. They bonded over their love of music and movies, and Burman says there has never been anyone else she has felt more herself with.

“I can’t explain it; from the very beginning it was just different with him. I automatically felt so comfortable,” she said. The two dated for a few years until May of 2019, when Lamkin decided it was finally time to pop the question.

During a shopping trip to Edmonton, while Burman went to look around in Winners, Lamkin headed straight to a jewellery store.

After purchasing the ring, he handed it to his friend to hold on to overnight because he didn’t trust himself to be able to keep it a secret. The next day the ring was in Lamkin’s hands again and he couldn’t wait any longer, so he proposed that night while they were watching TV.

“He made some dinner for me, and we were watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and all of a sudden he just turned to me and I thought he was joking when he first did it,” said Burman. When she found out he was serious, she said yes.

They planned the wedding for the summer of 2020, and didn’t let a little thing like a global pandemic get in the way of their plans. The pair always wanted a smaller wedding anyway, joked Burman.

They got married at Landry Lake Ranch near Bonnyville, a cozy barn wedding venue with a dock on a large pond, which was used as their altar. Burman says that although the day wasn’t originally what she envisioned it to be, it was better.

“I couldn’t say it was anything less than perfect,” she said.