The First Dateability Wedding Reminded Me This Was Never Just a Business

My mom was scrolling through a Facebook group for people with chronic illness when she saw a post about dating. She commented to share about Dateability. And then someone replied to say she was getting married to her Dateability match.

Being a founder is a lot. I don’t say that to complain at all. I chose this, and I’d choose it again every time. But there are hard days. Days when the to-do list is endless, when the challenges feel bigger than the wins, when you’re wearing so many hats you forget which one belongs to you. Days when it’s easy to get lost in the logistics of building a company and lose sight of why you started.

Kaci’s Facebook comment about marrying her Dateability match brought me back.

Kaci LaFon had been single for five years. She has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and a range of other chronic illnesses… the kind that make it hard to date, not because of who she is, but because of how little most people understand. Dates wouldn’t understand if she had to cancel because she was in a flare. Matches couldn’t navigate her challenges. She tried, and she tried, and eventually she ran out of things to try.

Then her mom spotted an article about Dateability and told her to give it a shot.

She matched with Collin within three days.

Collin LaFon has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. He’d tried every dating app there was. His experience was the same as Kaci’s, just from a different angle: the moment he mentioned his disability, people ruled him out. He spent years feeling like he had to win people over, had to make up for being in a wheelchair, and had to compete with non-disabled men for a fair shot. He always felt like he had to ‘make up’ for being a wheelchair user on mainstream dating apps but with Dateability, everyone comes in at the same point of understanding.

They were in different states, Collin in Alabama and Kaci in Missouri. But they never stopped talking. Hours of FaceTime every day. They had the same faith, the same love of romantic comedies. They were both born premature, at 26 weeks, both about a pound and ten ounces. They just fit.

Colin proposed on Thanksgiving 2024. She put the ring on her finger before he even finished asking.

Kaci and Collin planned a February 2026 wedding. But in early 2025, Collin faced a series of medical crises, including surgery complications, a bowel blockage that turned septic, weeks on a ventilator, and months in the ICU.

To ensure they could make medical decisions for each other if anything happened again, they quietly married at a courthouse that September.

But they still wanted a big wedding with all their family and friends, to not only celebrate their love but also the fact that Collin was alive. And on February 28, 2026, they got it. The first Dateability wedding.

When I learned about their engagement, I cried.

It took a lot to build this app. My sister Alexa and I started Dateability in 2022 because I faced repeated discrimination and rejection on mainstream dating apps. When we couldn’t find something for people like me, we built it. We figured it out as we went. No technical background, no roadmap, just a deep belief that the disabled and chronically ill community deserved better.

And then Kaci and Collin found each other.

Collin told us: “I hate the word inspiration. I’m just trying to live my life how anyone else would live their life.” He said it offhandedly, but it carries so much weight because it’s exactly why we built Dateability. Not to inspire anyone. Not to be a feel-good story. But to give people a place where they could just live their lives. Where they could find someone who gets it without a big reveal or having to explain their bodies first.

Four years since launching, we have users across three continents. We’ve been featured in People, The Washington Post, and The Associated Press. We’re growing super fast. But none of that, not a single metric or press mention, has meant more to me than knowing that people are finding one another and connecting because we built something, believed in it, and believed in ourselves.

This was never just a business. It was always about helping people connect. Kaci and Collin proved it. And so are the hundreds of people that message us regularly to share their stories.