Like many single people attending friends’ weddings, Alexandra Telford Dale and Patrick John Kohout were each given a rundown of eligible guests attending the June 4, 2022, nuptials of John O’Malley and Samantha Pelcher in Manchester, Vt.
For whatever reason, though, “They left us off each other’s lists,” said Mr. Kohout, an account executive at the Boston-based Metro Builders Supply.
At their shared table, designated for single guests, Ms. Dale, 38, and Mr. Kohout, 36, began talking when Ms. Dale, a commercial hair and makeup artist represented by talent agency Artists with Agency, recognized a high school classmate in the distance. This led to a conversation about her upbringing in South Deerfield, Mass., and Mr. Kohout’s in nearby Northampton.
“We started connecting some dots and we were just bewildered,” said Mr. Kohout, who graduated from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth with a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts. The pair had been born at the same hospital, and Mr. Kohout’s mother, Deb Orgera, had worked as a staff member at Smith College, where Ms. Dale received a bachelor’s degree in studio art.
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After the wedding, Ms. Dale and Mr. Kohout made plans for a June 11 restaurant crawl in Boston’s North End only to cross paths in that neighborhood on June 6. Ms. Dale, who was living in Somerville, Mass., where the couple has since settled, sat with a friend in Langone Park when Mr. Kohout, who lived just minutes away, rode by on his bicycle.
Before the official first date, Mr. Kohout was nervous. “I felt like I found somebody that I really had a connection with, and I did not want to mess it up,” he said.