We're so excited to celebrate with you!

Natalia and Joe’s love story starts out like many modern ones, on a website - theirs was OkCupid. They talked about breakfast foods and their favorite things to do in the city and discovered that they lived within walking distance of each other. Their first date was coffee at Starbucks and a walk through the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, where they discovered they wanted to spend as much time together as possible. They continued the day at the Brooklyn Museum, then a nearby grocery store, and parted ways with a hug on Natalia’s doorstep. They immediately knew they had something special. Two days later, a snowstorm hit New York, and Natalia and Joe decided to spend the day cooking lunch and getting to know each other. They’ve been inseparable ever since. In November 2017, they moved in together to an apartment near Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, the spot where they had their first date. In 2018, they adopted two cats, Hall & Oates, and have been in competition for who is the cats’ favorite parent ever since. They moved to Harlem for a brief time and then decided that Brooklyn was their true home, and now live in a cozy corner of Prospect Park South.

After Joe suggested (for the first time ever) that Natalia should get her nails done, she knew the proposal was coming. Joe suggested that they go on a walk to Prospect Park, and they took a stroll down to the Prospect Park Boathouse, one of Natalia's favorite spots in the world. Joe then got down on one knee and asked Natalia to marry him. As a surprise, Joe had asked one of his friends (now groomsman, J) to photograph the event. They took pictures and called their parents, and they immediately knew they'd want a fall wedding.

During the pandemic, we decided that we wanted to make our marriage official earlier than planned. In a time where things are constantly changing, we wanted to make sure that no matter what happened, we would get to be together. On a fabulous fall day in September 2020, we gathered our closest friends in person and our closest loved ones over Zoom, and said "I do". We still love a big party though, and can't wait to celebrate at our upcoming "big wedding"!