Gillian & Dan in Santa Ynez, CA

I hesitate to use the word 'date' since to this day, Dan swears that it was not a date, says Gillian, remembering the first time she met Daniel, who had attended law school with her friend Allison. THE BRIDE Gillian van Oosten, an economist THE GROOM Daniel Biedler, a tax attorney THE DATE November 10 That it was a setup was pretty obvious, but Allison proposed the meeting to Dan as just getting together for coffee and made it out to be a real date to Gillian. Coffee turned into dinner, which led to dessert, says Gillian, and by the time we parted company, we'd already set our next (or according to Dan, our first) date. So no matter what the technical circumstances of their first encounter, their passion for one another is undisputed -- and culminated with a proposal in Paris the following spring.