Sabrina Caren Soto calls her love story with Nathan Thomas Whitney her “happily ever after 45.” She first matched with Mr. Whitney on Raya in May 2023, but they struggled to find time for a first date.
Mr. Whitney, who goes by Nate, was living in Chicago and working as a physical therapist for the Chicago Cubs when they matched. He happened to be in Los Angeles, where Ms. Soto lived, for a game against the Angels.
Still, “the timing was all wrong,” Ms. Soto said. “We were both traveling constantly for work. He was traveling with the Cubs. I was working on ‘Secret Celebrity Renovation.’ We could never figure out how to actually meet in person. Life got in the way.”
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Months passed before they reconnected. “I saw him on the app again. And thought, ‘There’s that cutie,’” Ms. Soto said.
She decided to send him a message.
“The season had just ended, and I happened to already have a getaway to California planned,” Mr. Whitney said. “She messaged three or four days before I was supposed to leave.”
Though she was excited to finally meet, she was teasingly suspicious of his perfectly timed travel plans. “I’m a Capricorn from New Jersey. I need receipts,” she joked. He had them.
They met in person on Oct. 13, 2023, for a cocktail at the Front Yard, a restaurant attached to the Garland Hotel in North Hollywood, Calif. “I felt so relaxed,” Ms. Soto said. “It was an easy conversation that could have gone on forever.” But it didn’t. Ms. Soto had plans with friends.
Interestingly, that turned out to be a good thing, she said. “It created more wanting.”
The drink went well enough that one date became many, and on Dec. 1, they made their relationship official. “That’s why we’re getting married on a weird day,” Ms. Soto said of their Monday wedding, timed to their two-year anniversary.
“He was alluding to us being exclusive,” Ms. Soto said. “I said, ‘Are you asking me if I want to go steady?’” He said yes, and so did she.
They juggled long-distance dating for one baseball season when Mr. Whitney returned to Chicago several days after their first date.
And, a year after meeting, although Mr. Whitney still had his place in Chicago, he all but moved into Ms. Soto’s house in Studio City. “I stayed in L.A. all off-season,” he said. “Then I went back to Chicago, worked that season, and am now moving in and closing up in Chicago.”
Ms. Soto, 48, is a former HGTV host and interior designer whose current projects span television, podcasts and product lines. She hosts “The Sabrina Soto Show” on the Design Network, available on Hulu, and the podcast “Redesigning Life.” She also designs bedding for Boscov’s and rugs for Rugs.com, and is writing her first book, “The Home Within.” Born in Miami, she spent her early years in Kearney and Hasbrouck Heights, N.J., before settling in Burbank, Calif., during junior high.
Mr. Whitney, 43, was born and raised in Bloomington, Ill. He earned a bachelor’s in exercise science from Illinois State University and a doctorate in physical therapy from the University of Illinois Chicago and now works as the team physical therapist for the Los Angeles Angels.
Mr. Whitney proposed on Jan. 17. Figuring out how to do it wasn’t easy. “She is really hard to fool, and I didn’t want it to be expected.” So he decided on an escape room, something she had never done before.
It had been 15 months since they met, so he surprised her with a 15-diamond infinity ring hidden inside a 15-chapter book he made himself. Each chapter chronicled a month of their relationship, and he hollowed out the final pages to hold the ring.
With help from the Atlantis-themed escape room, the leather-bound book was placed where the trident, signaling the end of the adventure, is usually placed. As Ms. Soto grabbed it, “The ring fell out of the book onto the floor. I opened it kind of dramatically,” Ms. Soto said. “He’s looking for the ring. I was in shock, crying and laughing.”
Afterward, the two had dinner at the same restaurant where they had their first date. His parents and her mother, sister and best friend were there waiting.
The couple married on Dec. 1 at Casi Cielo Vineyards in Camarillo, Calif., with 32 guests in attendance. Christopher Robinson, ordained through the Universal Life Church, officiated. Ms. Soto’s daughter from her previous marriage, Olivia, 10, walked her down the aisle and served as both the maid of honor and the ring bearer.
“As women, as we get older, especially with children, the world tells you that you have to settle,” Ms. Soto said. “But nothing could be further from the truth.”
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