WellWed in New York

It only makes sense that Lisa Tassone fell for a man who could make an unforgettable dish of pappardelle with rabbit ragú—and that Thomas Giudice couldn’t resist a woman who dreamed of opening her own restaurant. After all, both hail from big Italian families where making great food is a proud tradition.

In a hole-in-the-wall restaurant nestled beneath an elevated subway track in Brooklyn, the couple on a blind date discovered something funny. They had the same name, sort of. "Kermit," a Gaelic name, means "free man"; "Azadeh," in Persian, means "free woman." Lingering for three hours over dinner, while a lone guitarist played flamenco music and the walls rattled every time a train went by, Azadeh Houshyar and Kermit Westergaard discovered a certain chemistry, too. The night felt surreal - "like we weren't even in New York, but in a movie like Amelie," recalls Azadeh.

Katharine Greenawalt was a college student freelancing for the summer at the Boston advertising agency where Brandon Cyr worked. The two exchanged flirtatious glances in the hallways until Brandon finally got up the nerve to talk to her, "bumbling my way through my opening lines," as he recalls. Brandon got another chance when he spied Katharine through the window of a local pub and pulled her inside for a drink, just a few weeks before she was to head back to school in St. Louis.

It was music that brought Regan Teti and Robert Marscher together. He is a pianist who played for many years in the New England band Addison Groove Project (AGP). They were scheduled to play the Berkshire Mountain Music Festival in August 2000, where Regan was in charge of greeting arriving bands. When AGP's van pulled in, late, and she introduced herself to Rob, the driver, "It truly was love at first sight," Regan says. They didn't spend much time together that weekend, but a few days after the festival, Regan got Rob's email from the band's website.

Currently residing in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, Jessica Erhardt grew up spending summers at her family's house in the Adirondacks. She wanted a wedding venue that reflected the rustic nature of the areas that she and fiance Joshua Herberger loved. As an event planner, she liked the idea of a barn to provide the backdrop for her wedding design. The Pruyn House offered exactly the setting the couple wanted, with a variety of buildings around the property to accommodate the needs of guests who included children, teenagers, friends, and elderly relatives.

A house brought Maie Vaga and Jim Webb together. Jim, a Massachusetts native, had fond memories of his first place in Mission Beach, California, and stopped by one day after he’d moved out to meet the home’s new inhabitants.

Maie, who’d been a year behind Jim moving from the East Coast to the West, immediately recognized the cute guy from the end of the street who was always outside fixing surfboards when she pedaled by on her bike.

It was Rochester, New York, that brought Grace Vangeison and Chris Johnston together. They first met as students at the University of Rochester, where Grace served as coach for Chris’s swimming team for her sorority’s annual fundraiser, which combined synchronized swimming and relays, with hilarious results. The crush was instant and mutual. But it wasn’t until almost three years later, when they were getting ready for graduation, that Grace and Chris admitted they’d been attracted to each other for years.

Courtney Storti knew that Corey Fountain was the boy for her — but 16-year-old Corey wasn’t too impressed with the 13-year-old cousin of his pal John. Over the following years, Corey and Courtney ran into each other now and again at parties, but it wasn’t until John’s wedding that they really clicked. Even then, nothing really came of it, since Courtney and Corey were living in different states. But when they both ended up in their hometown of Rochester, New York, Corey wrangled Courtney’s number from John and asked her out.