Indiana Touchette has inspired many songs for indie country singer Alexandra Kay. Her music has paid homage to their relationship, served as balm for heartbreak and even predicted their future.
The duo met in high school; they’re from neighboring small towns in Southern Illinois, Waterloo and Millstadt, where they now have a home. They went on their first official date after high school in 2012, and it was the little things that stood out to Ms. Kay, who goes by Lexi.
“I remember exactly what he was wearing,” she said. “He pulled up and his car was super clean; we went to the movies and I made fun of him for eating cookies.”
Things progressed quickly, and Ms. Kay and Mr. Touchette moved in together after just three months. “It was a learning curve, both of our first time out of the house — we were 18, 19 years old,” said Mr. Touchette, a union laborer who is 29 and goes by Indy. “I worked days, then she would bartend.”
She also signed a record deal in 2013 and began traveling frequently to perform. “We’d basically just see each other in passing; that was really rough,” he said.
They called it quits after just six months — but subsequently realized how much of a fit they actually were.
“We both have a kind of dark and dry sense of humor,” Ms. Kay said. “We laugh at the same kind of stuff, but we also complement each other so well. I am a very high-strung human being — I’m just go, go, go all the time. Indy is super chill. I can be on the road going through an episode and I can call him and just his voice calms me down in seconds.”
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During their time apart, which lasted about a year, Ms. Kay, 30, penned a song called “Somewhere Near Indiana” about the breakup and her love for Mr. Touchette. When the two rekindled, the lyrics proved fatefully true. The refrain included the line: “I want one more kiss under a harvest moon” — and that night, there was a harvest moon.
“It was meant to be,” Mr. Touchette said. “And we’ve been together ever since.”
They’ve managed to remain in sync despite busier schedules than ever before, as Ms. Kay tours the country. (Her popularity took off during the pandemic when her coffee singalong series went viral on TikTok.)
Mr. Touchette proposed at Christmastime in 2019. Because of ongoing renovations to their home in Millstadt, the couple wasn’t able to decorate for the holiday. “Lexi is Mrs. Christmas, so she was very upset about that,” Mr. Touchette said. So he hatched a plan to propose in a Yuletide wonderland at the Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis.
He coordinated with Ms. Kay’s tour photographer, who snapped photos from an inconspicuous location as Mr. Touchette got down on one knee.
They were married Sept. 25 in a wooded ceremony officiated by Mr. Touchette’s brother-in-law, Tim Hastey, who was ordained by American Marriage Ministries. A reception for 220 guests followed in a renovated white barn in Mount Vernon, Ill.
Of course, Ms. Kay wrote a song for the event, one she called “From September to Forever.” But in the end, “I decided not to make a big performance, because I wanted it to be about us and our love for each other,” she said.
Instead she performed the song in private for her new husband. “I’m a sucker for a love song,” she said.
