Shooting fans set to marry – but no shotgun wedding!

How an invite to look at a match’s gun collection has inspired a country couple to marry – but it’s no shotgun wedding!

“Shotguns, rifles… I’ve got the lot! I’ll take you and show you how it’s done.”

As online dating chat up lines go, the prospect of checking out a match’s gun collection on a first date would usually be a massive red flag for many singles.

Not on Muddy Matches, though, where it’s a way of rural life, and not for Sussex-based shooting fan Bente, that’s for sure. The 30-something fitness instructor willingly accepted the invite from 60% muddy, trained gamekeeper Aaron whilst countryside dating with us.

In fact, he was her perfect match, and with her own profile saying she was ‘sad that shoot season was over’ – it was no surprise a country pub date quickly followed.

That was in March 2022, just a month after both singles had joined up hoping to discover love in the countryside. And it was a connection that quickly bloomed on common ground; not least as they bonded over a shared love of local shoots, working gun dogs and joint acquintenaces out in the fields.  

Now, just 15 months on and Bente and Aaron are set to tie the knot – and the pair couldn’t wait to update the Muddy Matches team at the root of their romance.

“I am excited to share we get married next year,” Bente says. “We are engaged, with our wedding in July next year. We have a country house setting and our dogs will be part of the wedding.”

It’s fitting of a couple whose heart is deep set in mud.
 

“Aaron and I both shoot. Aaron is incredible,” Bente tells us. “I work my springer spaniel, previously my beautiful lab. We love for walking. Last year we spent a week exploring Scotland. 

She talks of adventures together, hiking in Austria, regular date nights, finding ’new cool things’ to do together; the list goes on. “We just laugh a lot” she adds. “We are looking at a new pheasant shoot day to try at the moment, and planning a hiking trip to Iceland.

All whilst saving to buy their first home together.

It was that laid back approach to country life that first attracted Bente to Aaron’s dating profile – one she described as ‘relaxed’ – and it has continued.

She has her mates to thank. It was they who encouraged her to join up to Muddy Matches in the first place, after discovering that Tinder was not the place for her.

“I feel my Muddy Matches experience has been pretty amazing. All my mates who told me to sign up are invited to my wedding day” Bente adds.