♥ local love
KATIE and JOE
October 15, 2016 // Gumula Photography
T
here are just some moments
in life that stick with you. Katie, for
instance, still remembers the very first
time she saw her eventual husband, Joe.
“I noticed him while attending a wind ensemble
concert at our school, Rhode Island College, in the
fall of 2007; he was playing the upright bass and
was hard to miss!” she says. “But we didn’t meet
until later that March when a fellow musician made
Joe sit next to me in the dining hall. I turned about
twenty shades of red and didn’t make eye contact
because I was mortified.”
Luckily, Katie was eventually able to open up to
the handsome bassist she had been crushing on all
year and the two talked for hours. This interaction
soon gave way to a seven-year relationship and a
proposal at their favorite spot, Narragansett Town
Beach, on New Year’s Day 2015. And then that led
to one of Joe’s most memorable experiences. “I
honestly don’t think I’ll ever forget that feeling,”
he says of seeing Katie make her way down
the aisle towards him on their wedding day. “I
remember standing at the front of the church, my
heart pounding in my chest, time somehow both
standing still and whizzing by. When she rounded
the corner and I saw her beautiful smiling face, it
was all I could do to keep from completely losing
it. She just looked… perfect.”
And while that seems impossible to top, the
rest of their rustic autumn wedding at Rhodes on
the Pawtuxet was still overflowing with special
moments. A few included being chauffeured from
the church to the reception in a borrowed 1977 Ford
Thunderbird (a dream come true for a motorhead
like Katie); watching a fun folkloric dance by the
Cranston Portuguese Club (a surprise gift from
Katie’s father); and getting up on stage to play
tambourine and bass with Joe’s band, Niki Luparelli
and the Gold Diggers.
But the real standout for Katie was enjoying some
quiet, reflective time with her bridal party while
getting ready that morning. “My mother passed
away from ALS a few months before, but she had
been there when I found my wedding dress. She
even bought it for me,” says Katie. “As I put on my
dress and veil on my wedding day, I remembered
her and the moment when she had initially seen
me try it on. It made me feel even more that she
was there with me that day.”
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