Ariel & James' wedding at The Piermont | Babylon, NY

February 04, 2019 • Leave a Comment

Our story dates back to 2010 when we met at a party in Scranton, PA for his 21^st Birthday. His friend from high school coincidentally was dating my best friend in college. It was almost as if forces drew us together, but we didn’t know it was supposed to be that way until much later. I was instantly attracted to him. His outgoing personality and bright green eyes immediately sparked my interest. I was seeing someone at the time so I never thought us meeting was going anywhere. However, a year and a relationship later James reached out to me. We ended up bumping into each other a few times out in Rockville Centre, which eventually lead to our first date at Emilio’s in Commack. We both spent our last year in college seeing each other when we could, and hanging out over breaks. Our relationship didn’t flourish until after graduating college. This was when we truly spent the time to get to know each other and fell in love. Sparks were flying in the air as we slowly uncovered little details, secrets, and feelings about each other. We grew together through the large milestones in our lives after college. I said goodbye to him when he left for Sniper School and watched him get accepted into the NYPD and graduate from the Police Academy. He was by my side when I was hired at Deer Park High School as a math teacher. We spent those few years out of college growing into ourselves and growing in love.

James is truly a spectacular person. He is extremely funny and always thinking of others. He has the biggest heart, and I know he will do everything in his power to keep mine full. I knew that James was the one when we were at his mom’s summerhouse on Fire Island. We were all on the beach, catching some sun, and James was playing with the kids building sand castles and forts. It was the sweetest thing to see a big tough Marine, playing with his little cousins. It made me realize how tender and loving he would be with his own kids, and how I wanted to have him in my life forever. Seeing him in that moment made me realize how wholesome that beautiful heart of his is.

The night that we got engaged is a night that I will never forget. It was a Thursday and I had spent the entire day at work grading the Algebra 2 Regent’s exams for the school. James happened to be off that night, which is rare! He wanted to grab something to eat in Babylon, so when I got home from work we headed to Barrique. It was a gorgeous day out and decided to eat outside. After our early dinner we went to Argyle Lake, down the street. In the middle of taking a picture, James got down on one knee and asked me to be his forever person. Emotions were flooding and I couldn’t be any happier in that moment. To make it even more spectacular, our immediate family surprised me at a restaurant by our house. It was simply beautiful. The amount of joy, love and support that we felt in that one night, was unexplainable.

Shortly after our engagement we started planning our wedding. Everything moved at lightning speed. We were planning to get married 5 months from when we got engaged. Those of you who have planned a wedding, definitely know it can be extraordinarily stressful! However, it was not stressful for us one bit. We knew we wanted to be together, so why wait? Planning our wedding was seamless and everything fell into place. The anticipation of the big day was overwhelming. Our wedding turned out to be simply amazing. There is something so special about having everyone you love in one room celebrating with you. Although the night went extremely fast, we had so much fun and enjoyed every second of it. We really can’t thank our family, vendors and everyone who played a part in our special day, enough. The best part about it was that we did not have to worry about capturing this perfect moment because Jimmy Chu and his crew did a phenomenal job doing that for us. Thank you! Everything came together perfectly and we are so happy to have these beautiful memories to look back on! - Ariel