Megan and Ricky at Clarks Landing Yacht Club

Their story: Hundreds of miles couldn’t keep Megan Cappella and Ricky Petrosino apart. The pair met in 2010 when they were both in relationships with other people, but they hit it off when they reconnected in 2014. A few weeks later, though, Ricky, 29, of Toms River, moved from New Jersey to Texas, and the pair began talking on the phone the very next day, the long-distance blossoming of their love story. In a week’s time, he flew back to see Megan, 27, of Milltown. “We went on a first date and kissed in the rain,” she says. “It was the most romantic date.” They dated from afar for a little over a year, never going more than two months without seeing each other. “It made us really appreciate each other when we did spend time with each other,” she says. “I knew after one week that I was going to marry him.” Ricky moved back to New Jersey in July 2015. “He is the yin to my yang; he is my better half,” she says. “He knows me better than anyone knows me.”

The proposal: Ricky asked Megan to marry him a few months later, on Christmas Eve. They were planning to have dinner alone, and Megan says Ricky wanted her to get ready early. They took a walk on the pier in Island Heights on that warm December afternoon, and Ricky dropped to one knee. “I was so surprised,” she says. “It was the perfect moment. It was him and I, and no one else was around.”

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Details of the day: For their March 24, 2017, wedding, the bride captured the feeling of romance with soft pastels. Her bridesmaids wore pale pink, mint green and champagne, and she wore an ivory fit-and-flare gown with crystals and lace. “I wanted to do a softer spring wedding feel,” she says. “I put a romantic but rustic touch on it. You could just feel the love.”

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Favorite moment: Megan’s highpoint was when the church doors opened and she and Ricky saw each other for the first time as bride and groom. “The second I saw him I couldn’t stop smiling,” she says. “I knew I was making the best decision of my life marrying him.”

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Favorite details: The bride has two favorite things: The pink silk ribbon wrapped around her bouquet on which her calligrapher wrote part of the Bible verse that her godfather read during the ceremony, and her something blue, a piece of her younger brother’s Navy uniform that was sewn inside her gown.

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