Mutual friends introduced Kathleen and Parker during Taco Tuesday at a Newport Beach restaurant. “The minute I saw Parker, I knew I wanted to date him and here we are, six years later, married!” Kathleen says.
From that first meeting, Kathleen felt an undeniable spark with Parker. “I just had this feeling from the moment I met [him]. He has such a gregarious personality—I was immediately drawn to him,” she shares.
After some time dating, Parker also realized Kathleen was the one for him. “She is everything that I [was looking] for in a wife,” he says, “…smart, incredibly driven, hilarious, self-deprecating, comes from a great family and, for some reason, sees something in me. Enough in fact that she agreed to spend the rest of her life with me.”
Parker proposed in June 2014, during a two-week family trip to Newport Beach. The couple had met up with friends and shut down a local bar one night. When they woke up the next morning, the rowdy bunch felt the after-effects of the night before. After powering through the morning aches and pains, Parker suggested they take their dog for a walk. As they approached the end of the trail, Kathleen spotted a red wagon with their initials, balloons and all her favorite treats including Veuve Clicquot, prosciutto, Brie and stone-ground mustard. “I started crying hysterically out of joy,” she says. “Parker got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. It was absolutely perfect!” Shortly after, they joined their friends and families to celebrate their engagement.
On the same day of the proposal, Kathleen was already on the hunt for their venue. “I asked Parker if we could get married in Lake Tahoe. I knew for a fact that if his answer was yes, I wanted to book the Hyatt.” The next step was getting one of the Catholic churches in Lake Tahoe. “Once we had that squared away, everything fell into place. We had our date far enough ahead that we got our first pick for every vendor. I think that made it really easy,” she says.
The couple figured out their budget, agreeing that they both wanted to spend the most on the booze and the band. “That’s the only thing people remember from a wedding anyway. Did they have a good time? That’s what we wanted for our guests,” she shares.
And it was a dance party mission accomplished with their choice of band, Hip Service. “All I kept hearing was, ‘that was the best wedding band ever!’” remembers Kathleen.
Reflecting back on the more sentimental parts of the day, Kathleen and Parker both share special moments between the two of them. “I remember walking down the aisle,” she says. “My dad was bright red and sobbing, and I was having the hardest time not crying too. We didn’t do a first look, so before I saw Parker I was really nervous, but the minute the doors opened and I saw his face, I was fine. It was just jitters. I remember just being so happy.” For Parker, he still couldn’t believe how lucky he was. “It is probably cliché to say, but she was the only person I could see in the room, total tunnel vision.”
—Kourtney Jason
