“Wherever is your heart, I call home.”
Kim Kepple, 39, and Holly Zipperer, 47, found that “home” with each other initially as members of a Brandi Carlile fan club. The two now sport matching tattoos, depicting a small heart within a house shape, to signify the singer-songwriter’s 2015 song, “Wherever is Your Heart.”
Kepple and Zipperer were pronounced married as their favorite song began playing July 30 in a surprise backyard ceremony. Zipperer, who proposed to Kepple Jan. 13, made sure to get her future wife out of the house that afternoon so friends and family could set up. She did not tell Kepple they were getting married until 30 minutes before the ceremony.
“It felt right to do it in our backyard,” Zipperer said. “We have a third of an acre right in the borough of Phoenixville and it’s pretty much an oasis for us. We spend a lot of time in our yard. I thought that would be a good place because I feel like that was where Kim would be the most comfortable and we together could be the most comfortable. It was just really cool and relaxed and laidback.”
Kepple said she didn’t expect the wedding — but that it wasn’t the first time her wife gave her a surprise.
“Holly is full of surprises, and they’re usually not bad surprises,” Kepple chuckled.
“That’s good to hear,” Zipperer added with a laugh.
The women became Facebook friends in 2010 but they were both with other partners at the time. Their conversations consisted solely of Carlile and her upcoming shows. After breaking up with their partners in 2015, they connected more online and supported each other through their breakups, “with the thread of music being the foundation,” Zipperer said.
Kepple was expecting Zipperer to come to her house on New Year’s Day in 2016, where the couple would meet for the first time in person. However, Zipperer had other ideas. She drove home from Georgia on New Year’s Eve and decided to surprise Kepple.
“We spoke on the phone much of that drive but she had no idea that I was coming to see her until I was about 100 yards from her house and we were still on the phone,” Zipperer said. “I was like, ‘Hey, guess what?’ That was obviously a big risk. I went with my gut and I’m very grateful that I did and we spent that long weekend together. We haven’t been apart much more than probably four days at a time since 2015, [on] Dec. 31.”
Kepple, who works as a nurse, noted that she was not expecting Zipperer.
“I was wearing scrubs and had just gotten off work for the day after a 12-hour shift. It was kind of, ‘Take me as I am or not at all,’” Kepple joked.
The two shared a midnight kiss that evening.
“I feel like it was a combination of ‘Oh my God’ and ‘completely natural,’” Kepple said. “It just kind of felt like we’ve known each other forever.”
Nearly two years later, the wives share a craftsman-style bungalow in Phoenixville with two mutts named Alabama and Kirby, a cat named Darby, a foster kitten named Vespa and three chickens named Gypsy Rose Lee, Florence Nightingale and Goldie Hen. Kepple also has two children from her previous marriage — Liam, 20, and Carlyn, 16 — who live with them part-time.
The women said it was true love even before they met, but that first in-person meeting solidified it.
“There was definitely a connection beyond anything I have experienced in my 40-plus years,” Zipperer said.
