We made our marriage official on July 31, 2020 with a small, beautiful ceremony with close family and friends. We are so excited to finally celebrate with everyone with a short and sweet ceremony followed by a very anticipated reception on Friday, August 27th, 2021. We are good to go at the original venue, Traditions at the Links in Syracuse, New York. Fortunately, most of the COVID restrictions have been lifted, but there are still a few we have to follow. Masks are not required for fully vaccinated guests and dancing is back on! The venue will require contact information on all guests for contact tracing purposes. There is still a capacity limit at the venue, but we are trying our best to include everyone. We will be sending out new invitations very soon! Thank you for all of your love and support! We are looking forward to FINALLY celebrating with all of you! Stay safe! ❤️

As all great love stories start, I was out at a bar with friends and spotted the most gorgeous girl at the front right side of the bar ordering a drink. With a little liquid courage and some encouragement from friends, I went up to her with absolutely no plan on what I was going to say and put on my best ‘smile and be friendly because I don’t know what else to do’ look and asked if I could buy her a drink. After her initial ‘why is this creep staring at me’ look, she accepted the offer and we immediately clicked. She was so pretty, and easy to talk to, we spent the next few hours having a great time together, with never a dull or awkward moment that went by. The following weekend she agreed to meet back up with me at her house and we picked up right where we left off at the bar, hitting it off with one another right away. Thank goodness, since she informed me upon my arrival that she had no cable, no movies, and only had 7 seasons of the Golden Girls on DVD to watch! But that didn’t matter one bit, I just enjoyed her company so much, and it confirmed what I already knew after meeting her the first night, that we were meant to be together for a long, long time!

Picture it: Utica, 2015…I was out for drinks with friends and spotted this guy across the bar and we locked eyes and he gave me the biggest smile and I thought “oh great, he’s going to come hit on me”. Sure enough, a few minutes later he came strolling up to the bar and asked to buy me a drink, and since I’m polite, I accepted his offer. We ended up hitting it off right away and even had an exhilarating conversation about insurance, as we both worked selling insurance at the time. A week later, I invited Andrew over to watch a movie and have some wine. As he was on his way over, I remembered that I had cancelled my cable earlier that day and was scrambling to find a DVD or something... all I turned up with though was an old Nintendo Wii and my collection of Golden Girls DVDs...I settled on the Wii. Andrew arrived, and he had that big smile on his face again and gave me the biggest hug and instantly all the nervousness went away. We played the WII and talked for hours. Once I beat him enough in bowling, I broke out the Golden Girls DVD’s. Somehow after all of this, he didn’t get scared away and we’ve been inseparable ever since, having as much fun as we did when we first met, no matter what we are doing.

Bride’s Story: Fast forward 4 ½ years and we are on our first day of vacation in Costa Rica. As soon as we got to our resort, we ditched our luggage and headed out to explore. After walking around for a little bit, we stopped for a drink on the beach. We were watching the sunset and I was so excited to be out of the country for my first time and on vacation, I remember looking at Andrew and saying “this is the best day ever”….little did I know, it really was about to be the best day ever! Andrew took my hand and walked me out to the beach to finish watching the sunset. As we were walking, he kept squeezing my hand and I could tell he was really nervous, but before I had a chance to think why he was so nervous, he swung around in front of me and was on one knee with the most beautiful ring. I was so surprised and speechless and the only thing I remember him saying was “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time”. Groom’s Story: We had a vacation planned to Costa Rica for months, and I knew that this was the perfect time to ask her to spend the rest of her life with me. What I didn’t expect however, was how stressful holding onto a ring for a couple months and traveling to a different country with it would be. Fortunately, our resort was beautiful, and everything went smoothly transporting the ring to our resort. I was too excited/anxious to wait any longer, and we were both already so excited to be in a new country, so during the sunset on the beach and within the first hour of being there, I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me! After the initial shock and neither of us really comprehending the significance of what had happened, we were able to spend the rest of the vacation celebrating our engagement with a full week of sunshine, beaches, pools, ziplining, monkeys, and touring Costa Rica!