After his fourth date with Julia Kaitlin Liverton in October 2022, Marco Foster Santarlasci called his parents, excited to share with them that he had met someone special.
“Within seconds, my mom went online and found a bunch of Julia’s photos, and my dad remarked that she’s so beautiful,” Mr. Santarlasci said.
Days later, on Oct. 29, Mr. Santarlasci’s father, Joseph Howard Santarlasci Jr., died unexpectedly. Though only two weeks had passed since Mr. Santarlasci and Ms. Liverton met, Mr. Santarlasci wanted her by his side, so he asked her to come to his apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn, where his family and close friends gathered to mourn his father.
Ms. Liverton called her mother, Foong-Khwan Siew, for advice. “She said, you don’t need to say anything or do anything, you just need to be there for him,” Ms. Liverton said. “So that’s what I tried to do.”
“Her being there meant the world to me,” Mr. Santarlasci said. “It cemented our relationship. Since that night we haven’t been apart from each other for more than 24 hours.”
Ms. Liverton, 26, grew up in Harleysville, Pa., and moved to Brooklyn in 2016 to attend Pratt Institute, where she received a bachelor’s degree in industrial design. She is a freelance industrial designer for various companies, including Chewy, which sells pet-related products, and has a side business designing wedding stationery.
Mr. Santarlasci, 31, was born in Washington. He attended orientation at Berklee College of Music in Boston for two days before dropping out and moving to New York City in 2011. There, he met the rapper Tramar Lacel Dillard, known as Flo Rida, at a party and spent five years touring with him as a lead guitarist, featured vocalist and opening act. He is signed with Artbeatz Entertainment, an independent pop music label.
When Mr. Santarlasci was 8, his oldest brother Joseph Howard Santarlasci III, who went by Jay, died at age 26 during Navy SEALs training. Since then, Mr. Santarlasci has considered his brother a guardian angel.
“I never talked to God. I talked to Jay,” Mr. Santarlasci said. “I feel like he’s had a hand in the big things that have happened in my life and knowing my dad was leaving soon, because my dad was my best friend, I feel like he brought my new best friend into my life simultaneously.”
On his 30th birthday, on Jan. 14, 2023, Mr. Santarlasci performed at a gala in Lincoln, Neb., and brought Ms. Liverton along. “That night after the show when we were in bed, I said I wanted to marry her,” he said.
Though only a few months had passed since their first meeting, the pacing didn’t feel fast to Mr. Santarlasci. His parents had gotten engaged three months after meeting and married about a year after that.
Ms. Liverton had been feeling the same way about marriage. “Ever since we started being in a relationship, it had been so easy and natural and everything made sense,” she said.
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Ms. Liverton began working with a jeweler on a design for her engagement ring, combining a solitaire diamond and two sapphires from rings that belonged to her and Mr. Santarlasci’s mothers’ families. She also helped Mr. Santarlasci design an engagement ring for himself with a diamond from her mother’s side of the family. But Mr. Santarlasci decided he couldn’t wait until the rings were ready.
After a family trip to Malaysia, where Ms. Liverton’s mother is from, in February 2023, Mr. Santarlasci had a conversation with Ms. Liverton’s father, Nigel Liverton, about proposing.
“My dad asked him the same questions that my mom’s father asked him,” Ms. Liverton said. “Will you always love her and respect her? Will you always treat her right?”
On April 28, 2023, Ms. Liverton and Mr. Santarlasci were at the home they shared in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, when Mr. Santarlasci proposed using his mother’s engagement ring as a temporary place holder. “I’d been driving myself a little crazy with, when will I do it? What’s the perfect moment?” he said. “But all that she cares about is that I say what I want to say.”
The couple were wed July 20 by Conor Foley, the outreach minister at the First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn, which Mr. Santarlasci’s family attends, at the Prospect Park Boathouse in Brooklyn in front of 108 guests.
The groomsmen wore red Lego heart boutonnieres created by Ricky Jackson, a fashion designer and one of Mr. Santarlasci’s close friends. Mr. Santarlasci gave Ms. Liverton the same type of Lego heart on their second date. Instead of signing a guest book, guests scribbled their names on a custom white baseball bat. (Mr. Santarlasci is a Yankees fan.)
In a nod to Ms. Liverton’s mother’s side of the family, the tables were named after Ms. Liverton’s favorite Malaysian fruits, like lychee, rambutan and star fruit, and actual fruits were incorporated into the floral arrangements.
During the reception, also at the boathouse, Mr. Santarlasci serenaded Ms. Liverton with Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling In Love.” It was the first song he’d ever sung to her, back in the fall of 2022.
“That song describes our love,” he said. “It happened so quickly and it was almost like we couldn’t stop the momentum.”
“It was amazing,” Ms. Liverton added. “I cried.”
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