Reyna & Anthony in Brooklyn, NY

Anthony and I met over pancakes, Reyna Abaquin says, describing a love-at-first-bite encounter that sounds like something out of a Meg Ryan movie. But the story quickly veers. THE BRIDE Reyna Abaquin, 29 THE GROOM Anthony Brown, 29 THE DATE May 27 The couple met not in some trendy Manhattan café, but in the cafeteria at the U.S. Embassy in Dakar, Senegal, where Anthony Brown was stationed as a U.S. Marine. Reyna was a Peace Corps volunteer in a West African desert village who had come to the capital city. Over the next year, as her romance with Anthony blossomed, Reyna made the trip nearly a dozen times, traveling eight to fourteen hours each way on a public bus crowded with people and, sometimes, chickens, goats and other animals! A year later, Reyna returned to Brooklyn and Anthony headed to his new post in London. The couple lost touch, until one day Anthony tracked Reyna down at her job. Via telephone, he professed his love and told her he'd been searching for her all this time. They were two months into their wedding plans when he officially proposed.