Kathryn Ann Pantaleo and Francesco Andrea Bello were married Aug. 10 in Whitestone, Queens. Msgr. John C. Tosi performed the ceremony at St. Luke Roman Catholic Church, where he is the pastor, with the Rev. Paul Kim taking part.
Mrs. Bello, 37, is a speech-language pathologist in various Queens schools for the Department of Education. She graduated from CUNY’s Queens College and received a master’s degree in speech-language pathology from Adelphi University.
She is the daughter of Josephine A. Pantaleo and Nicholas Pantaleo of Whitestone. The bride’s father retired as the director of the pharmacy at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in Richmond Hill, Queens. Her mother is the chief diversity officer at Queensborough Community College in Bayside, Queens.
Dr. Bello, 35, is the school psychologist at Mount Pleasant Blythedale School, which is part of Blythedale Children’s Hospital in Valhalla, N.Y. He graduated from CUNY’s City College and received a doctoral degree in clinical psychology from University of Hartford in Connecticut.
He is a son of Alicia Castillo of Yonkers, N.Y., and the late Saverio F. Bello. The groom’s mother retired as an administrative assistant in the principal’s office of Public School 279 in the Bronx. His father retired as the owner of Albee Specialties, a knitting factory that was in the Bronx.
The couple met in 2018 in the candy aisle at a supermarket in Larchmont, N.Y. She was there to pick up sweets for her nephews, whom she was about to visit, and he was buying treats for the medically fragile children that his program serves.
They started chatting when she failed to find what she was looking for on the shelf. But she didn’t fail to notice him. “I was looking for a specific M&M and he looked attractive and I didn’t see a ring on his finger,” she said.
She advised that he purchase a variety pack of individually wrapped candies, so that the children could dig through it for favorites without dirtying the lot. He helped her search for a family-size pack of plain M&Ms, which she had wanted so that her nephews would have to share.
In the meantime, they learned a bit about each other. “It was a few exchanges back and forth: What do you do? Where do you live?” she said.
“We got talking and she proceeded to ask me, straightforward, ‘Are you single?’ And I said, ‘Of course I am,’” he said. “Because I initially did find her beautiful, and it was so unexpected. I wasn’t actively looking to meet someone — it was a pleasant surprise.”
They went to the self-checkout together and he walked her to her car.
“Before we left, we had each other’s numbers,” she said.
