Gabriella and Mark - Wedding at Belmond Gran Hotel Timeo

24 June 2019Taormina, Italy

To call the story of Gabriella and Mark "destiny" would be a little bit of an understatement.
Their story is a love story that seems more like a fateful fairytale than real life.
It all began oh about 15 years ago, yes, you read that correctly, roughly 15 years in the
making, when Gabriella and Mark were both students at John Carroll University (Cleveland,
Ohio, USA). Their paths crossed between classes and parties but after graduation in 2006,
they went on their separate ways in life...Gabriella moved to Milan, Italy and Mark moved to
Huntington Beach, California.
Fast forward to March 2018, and thanks to social media, Mark and Gabriella reconnected,
notwithstanding the distance between them. After exchanging a few messages over
Instagram, they exchanged phone numbers. Texting each other then lead to hours‐long
phone calls and FaceTiming.
During one of their many phone conversations, they learned that they'd both be in their
hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, for Easter so they planned to meet up for lunch on Friday,
March 30, 2018 for their first date. It was pretty serendipitous since never in Mark's time
living away from Cleveland, did he ever travel to Cleveland for Easter. Furthermore, Mark
asked Gabriella to go to Cleveland's Little Italy for their date, exactly where Gabriella's
parents met and where Mark's parents would hang out when they dated. For the both of
them, these were all signs that it was all meant to be.
The lunch lasted about four hours and from there they went to the Cleveland Museum of
Art. They then carried onto Marble Room, where at the bar Mark told Gabriella "I love you
and I'm going to marry you one day." Gabriella, without any hesitation, told him the same
thing back.
Since then they've been inseparable notwithstanding the nearly 2,700 miles between them.
They committed to make it work.
And so that's where our story took us to Taormina, where Gabriella and Mark exchanged
vows of marriage on June 24, 2019.