Kristin & Ben in Jersey City, NJ

“Black Tie Optional. Dancing Required.” Kristin and Ben’s invitations said it all and got the wedding off on the right foot. The Bride Kristin Buckley, 30, community relations manager The Groom Benjamin (Ben) Hawkins, 31, senior copywriter The Date May 6 Benjamin (Ben) Hawkins’ knack for spontaneity caught Kristin Buckley off-guard at first but eventually won her over. Kristin and Ben met at a party in Washington, DC. “Within five minutes, Ben asked me out for lunch the next day,” Kristin says. “Completely taken by surprise, I responded with 5,001 excuses as to why I couldn’t.” The two kept in close touch after the party, however, and after they got to know each other better, Ben asked Kristin out again, with a more successful result. The surprises continued (for their first date, he gave her a mini-album of maps to all the places in the city she’d said she wanted to go and a Polaroid camera to take pictures once she went), and after a year of dating, Ben told Kristin they were taking a trip to see his parents in West Virginia. Their plane landed in California (“I thought it was in response to a joke I’d made that he was no longer spontaneous!” Kristin says), and Ben proposed at a winery in Sonoma. The two wed a year later in Liberty State Park.