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STORY BY LIESEL SCHMIDT PHOTOGRAHY BY RAE LEYTHAM PHOTOGRAPHY

After meeting as kids at St. Paul’s Episcopal School in 2008, Katelanne Whitehead and Tony Fadalla stayed in each other’s lives—even if merely in the peripheral sense. The two dated briefly before Katelanne went off to college in 2013 and then exchanged birthday and Christmas texts for the next six years. Tony smiles when he shares that he would get one extra text every two years when Katelanne always reminded him to “Go Vote”.

Fate intervened in 2020 when they literally bumped into one another at Pirate’s Cove. Even after so many years, their chemistry was still undeniably there—and so they began dating once again. Just over a year into dating, Tony knew that the time had come to pop the question. “Tony and I closed on our first home on December 4th, 2021,” says Katelanne. “He had plans to propose right after the closing, but unfortunately the ring was not ready. Instead of celebrating our new home, he convinced me that we both needed