ON E END Sapp y Th e AT THE

When I was 16, I had my first serious relationship.

The person I was dating lived an hour away from me, so from the jump, it was pretty dumb. While I have a lot of respect for the girl I dated to this day, and we’re still friends, I believe at that hormone-fueled age, almost everything is off-kilter, and we were just plain bad for each other.

I was in an emo band (you can laugh now), and not really into the party scene, while she was very buttoned-up, and loved everything social, especially house parties.

This, plus the fact that our values and political beliefs were totally opposite, made it a dumpster fire waiting to happen.

I don’t have a super funny moment, in fact, things ended really poorly: I got toxic and possessive, and she cheated on me.

I want to tell this story because after talking to her throughout the years, we’ve both realized that those things happened because we were letting our attraction and our love try to overcome the fact that we were a terrible, terrible match. And that’s just not how it works.

We were both (I think, I hope) fundamentally good people too. Even good people in really bad situations can end up doing things they’re not at all proud of.

Even more importantly, looking back together and realizing what went wrong and why armed us both with important knowledge as we started to date in the future. These lessons are truly invaluable, both for the quality of what they teach, and for the fact that there’s no way outside of living them—outside of going through the agonizing high school heartbreak yourself—to figure these things out. ♦

Five Columbus couples share their big day

By Jack McLaughlin / Section Design by Victoria Smith

hile breakups are painful in the short-term, they're also a necessary part of the process. Ask the Columbus couples who shared their recent nuptials with us, and they'd probably tell you the same thing: Without leaving an old relationship, you wouldnever have landed in the one you're currently a part of. So with a season of growth and renewal right around the corner in central Ohio, let's cherish break-ups for what they are in so many cases, a doorway to a better place, and let's also cherish the Columbus couples who have gathered here today to share their big days in the following pages.→ eghan and Nana met through a mutual friend in undergrad at Ohio State University when our friend suggested we all live together for our senior year (yes, we were roommates). Our friend has joked that when she suggested we live together, she thought we would be great friends, but she didn’t expect us to fall in love. hip and I met and started dating in 2014 at The Ohio State University while he was studying Computer Science Engineering and she was obtaining a degree in Sustainable Business. We met through a dear childhood best friend (who was a groomsman at the wedding) when Chip and he became roommates . Being two very nerdy people, we immediately learned that we're both huge Star Wars fans. In December of 2015, to celebrate our first year of dating, we went to Orlando, FL for the premiere of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, which became a bit of a tradition for us. ayla noticed Kara on a dating app, and not wanting to leave anything up to fate, she casually slid into her DMs with the exhilarating question: “Do I know you?” e met on Tinder on May 2, 2013.

After seven years of dating, we decided to get married. We actually booked our wedding venue, Strongwater Columbus, and our photographer, Amy Tannenbaum, before we were engaged!

That made for some interesting conversations.

We did get engaged shortly after, with Nana proposing first and Meghan proposing second.

Our wedding took place this past September on a rainy day at Strongwater that couldn’t have been more perfect.

During a December 2019 trip to Orlando to watch “Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker, we went to Disney's newly opened Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge where Chip proposed, while he was dressed as Han Solo and I was wearing my Princess Leia bun mouse ears.

On that trip we made custom droids that acted as ring bearers during the wedding ceremony on September 10th, 2022, along with custom lightsabers that we used for our entrance. Honestly, we're just a couple of dorky nerds that accidentally found our soulmate in one another. The force is strong in our new little family and we cherish every single day with eachother.

After this, and weeks of playful banter, we developed a fast friendship. We then grew apart over time, with Kara finishing graduate school at Ohio State and Kayla spending those years caring for her Mom until she lost her courageous eight-year battle with colon cancer.

In May 2019 we eventually reconnected at a time that was perfect for us both, and we’ve been inseparable since.

It meant so much to us to have Goodale Park as the backdrop of our wedding photos because it reminds us of one of our most memorable dates. After finishing dinner at Lemongrass in the Short North we walked over to sit on a bench at Goodale Park and for hours shared intimate stories about ourselves to one another. It was that night that we knew this was something that was going to last.

Our wedding took place on Oct. 26 at WaterEdge.

Javon's friend told him about a new app where he could meet new people in Columbus (Javon was relatively new to the area at the time). That evening, we both swiped right and we were each other's first match.

We began talking on the app that night, and met for the first time in person 10 days later. The rest, as they say, is history!

We dated for nine years before getting married, while dealing with four years of long distance. As Brianna completed her graduate studies in Washington, we supported each other through crises, and celebrated all of the bright moments in our lives together for the last nine years.

Javon proposed to Brianna on her birthday, a week before she began medical school. We planned our wedding in less than a year and celebrated the most beautiful day with our family and friends at 1883 Locale in Reynoldsburg on Sept. 16., 2022.

Photos By Venue

Amy Ann Photography

1883 Locale

e met in the spring of 2017 while we were neighbors in the Short North, and quickly found that we had a lot in common!

We were both collegiate athletes and shared a love of travel, food, and the outdoors. The two of us spent a lot of time traveling to new places together–hiking the W Trek in Chilean Patagonia, island-hopping in Greece, and exploring Croatia’s Plitvička Jezera. At the same time, we both value our time staying close to home and enjoying local spots like Basi, Curio, and Goodale Park.

Fast forward to October of 2020. We planned a fun weekend getaway to Healdsburg, California to celebrate Hannah’s 30th birthday. With a beautiful backdrop and surrounded by Hannah’s closest friends, Kristin proposed at a winery, ironically enough, called Hanna. And the rest is history! We got married on June 4, 2022 and could not have imagined a more perfect day. Celebrating alongside our closest friends and family made for memories that we will cherish for a lifetime.