jess + matt // Buffalo Murals and Ellicott Street

Jess and Matt met at the birthday party of a mutual friend. They talked and danced the night away and even had their first kiss! To top it off, they actually lived in the same NYC neighborhood too!! A match made in heaven and the rest is history, right?? Well, not exactly. They parted ways under the faulty impression of disinterest. Thank God for those mutual friends though because exactly one year later, at that same friend’s birthday party once again, they reconnected and the fire from the previous year kicked back up into high gear! Now, the rest is history :) Actually, the rest is right here in this adorable post! Read on to hear more about how Jess and Matt finally went on a first date, fell in love and one very special day decided to spend the rest of their lives together.

Jess: “Matt and I set up our first date a few weeks after that second birthday party, (it was around the Christmas holiday) at a nearby Peruvian restaurant in our neighborhood. It was the best first date either of us had ever had! We talked and laughed for hours – there was a real connection and attraction between us. The next 6 years got even better :)“

Jess: “The day before my birthday, Matt took me to dinner at the restaurant we had our first official date, followed by a drink at the bar where we rekindled our romance after that very first year. Then on to the place we spent his birthday our first year together, which was a pivotal night in our relationship. Then to the place we danced the night away the very first night. (I obviously could feel something special was going on, beyond a normal birthday celebration…). We walked home and grabbed an apple pie from McDonald’s (same as night one) and kissed on that same corner. We got back to our apartment to lit candles and a very intimate moment, with my favorite question I have ever been asked! My answer was an obvious yes!!!“

Jess: “We love to spend time together. We are perfectly happy hanging at home watching our favorite shows. We also love to have friends over to play cards. We have been to several baseball games together; Matt is a huge fan! We recently went to Minnesota for a 30th birthday celebration to visit family and the Twins Ballpark, as his dream is to visit all the ballparks.“

Jess: “We bring out the best in each other. We want the best for each other. We do whatever it takes to support each other. Those things are what keep our relationship strong and last and we believe in it. We are family! The love we share is real and deep <3“

kate + ron // Times Beach Nature Preserve and Larkin Square

If you know anything about Buffalo, you know that we love our food trucks. And if you love food trucks (or just food in general) and you love making the most of the fleeting summer, then you know that the place to be on a Tuesday night in Buffalo is at Larkin Square, where the food trucks and the people pile in to enjoy live music in the amazing heat of the summer along with some seriously great eats. Really though, if you’ve never been to Food Truck Tuesday then you best get moving. It was thanks to this awesome Buffalo right of passage that our wonderful couple, Kate and Ron, first met!

Kate: “One of my closest friends and I decided that we were going to make an effort to attend as many Food Truck Tuesdays as possible during the summer, and sent out a blanket invitation to all of our friends each week to join us. That fateful June evening, Ron happened to be golfing with one of our mutual friends who had promised to meet up with my friend and I at Larkin Square after their round. Ron didn’t drive, so he was forced to tag along. My friend and I arrived at Larkin Square early to avoid lines, so when Ron and I officially met I was already shoving poutine in my face while attempting to balance my glass of wine. Naturally, love at first sight!“

Kate: “I actually had to talk Ron into a first date! We had already hung out so much as a group, and were doing so many different things together on a regular basis, that an official date didn’t really seem necessary. Our relationship fell into place so naturally that realizing we should probably tick off the normal dating boxes at some point didn’t cross our minds. Plus we had already bought Bills season tickets for the year, so we were fully committed. But like most ladies with an affinity for Jane Austen novels and the dramatic, I like to be wooed, and I like dinner, so I asked Ron if we could go out to eat for an ‘official first date’, and he had to choose where we went. We went to Amici’s in Kenmore, and have gone there for each of our anniversaries since! (Funny side note: for the first 3-4 months we were dating, the only places Ron would take me to eat were Italian for some reason. I had to beg him to stop with the Italian for a while because the carb-loading was getting to be too much.) Our first date was on August 2, 2014, notable because after dinner we went to hang out with some of my friends, and Ron disappeared for most of the evening to watch the Andre Reed Hall of Fame induction speech by himself in the living room instead of socializing.“

Kate: “We got engaged on May 21, 2017 at 10:15 am in our bedroom with the dogs fighting over a toy trout on the bed as I answered the easiest question anyone has ever asked me! I woke up around 10am thinking that we had brunch with his parents at noon so I asked Ron if he wanted to have some coffee in bed and start a new Netflix series we had been talking about watching (The Keepers, worth a watch!). I went down to make coffee, and then he followed me down which I thought was odd but he said he wanted water instead of coffee. (He was really getting the ring out from behind the cable box in our living room.) Then he continued to weirdly follow me upstairs, and followed me around as I put pillows on the bed to watch TV. As I was just about to get annoyed that he would NOT leave me alone, I turn around and he gets down on one knee and asks me to spend the rest of my life with him. He’s also pulled some stunts before so I may have said no and to stop being mean a few times before I believed it was actually happening. I haven’t stop smiling or staring at my hand since!!“

Kate: “After he proposed he told me that we weren’t actually going to brunch with his family, that his family and a bunch of our friends were coming over with food to spend the day and celebrate with us, and he even called my boss to request I have the next day off from work to continue the celebrations. We went downstairs to start the obligatory phone calls and FaceTiming of my parents, who were traveling from their home in Charlotte to Indianapolis that day, and all of our other friends and family. About 10:45 the doorbell rings and Ron asked me to get the door, but I was preoccupied trying to get a picture of myself, my new bling, and the dogs and told him it was just my best friend who he’s met a million times so he could go get the door. He opens the front door and I am more than a little shocked to see my Grandma and parents walking up to the front door instead! Ron was able to get them to come to town to celebrate with us as well! The day was complete and magical. I’m definitely the planner in our household, and so I never in a million years thought he would be able to pull something like this without me knowing a thing. (Looking back, three different people asked me to go get my nails done with them the day before and I rejected all of them, but I never put two and two together). There were apparently a million different ways the day was supposed to go, but this way was my favorite. It was 100% us, low key and private. We love our home, and we love being with our boys, Mr. Darcy and Sammy.“

Kate: “Ron and I are perfect complements. He really makes me a better, calmer, more rational, spontaneous, carefree person. Being together is so easy and natural because we both understand and appreciate the importance of also having our own interests and friends as well as alone time. Spending time together is still our favorite thing, but our relationship has never been work. We’ve both known since early on in our relationship that this was going to be a forever thing, so we’ve maintained that mentality throughout any issues or obstacles or irrationality on my part. We don’t pretend to be anyone other than our real selves around each other, and that’s who we each truly love. We also laugh, a lot.“

Kate: “We value our friends, family, each other, and dogs. Our friends brought us together, our family provides love, support, and amazing examples of how we want to frame our own marriage, we have so much fun together and always love each other even if we don’t like each other very much, and our boys are our pride and joy and make our lives even more full of love and complete our little family.“

Kate: “We are very much homebodies, we love spending time together with our dogs at home. Anything we can do that involve our boys is a positive in our book. We aren’t quite to the anti-social level yet, we love when friends come hang out with us at our home! Ron is a grill master so we love any excuse to host a BBQ!! Ron is a true Buffalonian through and through, and so naturally Bills season means we have standing plans on Sundays. I am a huge hockey fan, go Bruins!, and Ron grew up playing hockey and played for St. Joes in high school and continues to love the sport to this day. (One of the first things he every said to me was that he was All-State in hockey in high school. My flirtatious response was, so? Luckily our sense of humor and ability to tease each other is one of our most endearing qualities as a couple). We have a standing bet at our house that whenever the Bruins and Sabres play during the regular season, the winner gets to fly their flag on the house for a week.“