Those Lucky Coins Paid Off

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Ashleigh Dopp and her girlfriends had been within the pool at their resort in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and gazing out on the sea when one thing else caught their consideration.

“We eyeballed these guys on the bar within the pool,” Ms. Dopp stated, “so we headed over to the bar.”

Among the many males was Kelly MacDonald, whose group had checked into the Resort Riu Santa Fe days earlier than Ms. Dopp and her 4 girlfriends arrived in November 2016.

Somebody in Mr. MacDonald’s social gathering of seven was carrying a baseball cap with the phrase Toronto on it, prompting Ms. Dopp and her buddies to interrupt the ice by asking if he and his contingent got here from Canada. (They did.)

Ms. Dopp, 38, stood out to Mr. MacDonald, 31, instantly. “There was virtually a halo round her,” he stated. However he at first was too shy to strike up a dialog. “I couldn’t discover something to speak to her about.”

Fortuitously, Ms. Dopp, a local of Buffalo, N.Y., was comfy taking the lead. She requested Mr. MacDonald the query she posed to any potential suitor: “What’s your favourite soccer workforce?”

When Mr. MacDonald, a former highschool hockey goalie, stated that he didn’t have one, Ms. Dopp was relieved. “Oh good,” she recalled telling him. “It’s the Payments, then.”

Added Ms. Dopp, “I instantly informed the ladies I had dibs on him.”

For the subsequent 4 days, the 2 didn’t depart one another’s sides. At one level, Mr. MacDonald bought a Buffalo Payments sombrero from a vendor on the seashore to impress Ms. Dopp, who was in disbelief over the emotions she was creating for a person she had identified for lower than per week.

“It was alleged to be a bit fling,” she stated. “As a substitute there was an immediate connection.”

However when their holidays got here to an in depth, actuality set in. Ms. Dopp was returning to Buffalo, the place she was between jobs on the time, and Mr. MacDonald to Calgary, Alberta, the place he lived and labored as a firefighter with the Rocky View County Hearth Division.

As they exchanged tearful goodbyes in Mexico, “I didn’t know if I used to be ever going to see her once more,” stated Mr. MacDonald, who handed her a Canadian one-dollar coin known as a loonie.

The cash had change into a logo of excellent luck in his nation ever because the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake Metropolis, when a Canadian employee positioned one beneath the ice of the Olympic hockey rink forward of the video games, and each the Canadian ladies’s and males’s hockey groups later gained gold medals.

When he gave the loonie to Ms. Dopp, “I hoped for a similar gold medal luck,” Mr. MacDonald stated.

After returning to their respective international locations, the 2 spoke by cellphone each day. In January 2017, Ms. Dopp visited Mr. MacDonald, and he or she took a number of extra journeys to Canada over the next months. Whereas there, he led her on a hike in Banff Nationwide Park, took her to the honky-tonk restaurant Ranchman’s, which was featured within the film “Cool Runnings” and has since closed, and launched Ms. Dopp to his mother and father.

On each go to, Ms. Dopp additionally acquired a brand new loonie from Mr. MacDonald.

That April, he met her mother and father whereas visiting Buffalo. The month earlier than, Ms. Dopp bought a job with the audio video firm Exertis. Then named Stampede, it had workplaces everywhere in the world, together with in Toronto. After coaching in its Buffalo workplace, she inquired about the potential of working remotely in Canada, which the corporate agreed to.

By November 2017, one yr after they met in Cabo San Lucas, she had relocated to Calgary. The next April, she moved into Mr. MacDonald’s dwelling.

“Geese had been a lot in a row by the entire whole factor,” stated Ms. Dopp. Even once they had been long-distance, the connection by no means felt like work, Mr. MacDonald stated. “It was really easy with us. We agree on every part, by no means combat, and it’s by no means boring along with her.”

In late December 2019, the couple went to New York Metropolis to have fun New Yr’s Eve with some buddies. On the morning of Dec. 28, they had been ice skating at Rockefeller Heart when Mr. MacDonald stunned Ms. Dopp by proposing on the rink. As folks round them started clapping and taking images, their buddies, whom he had tipped off forward of time, confirmed as much as be part of within the celebration.

“All these fortunate loonies I used to be giving her paid off,” Mr. MacDonald stated of Ms. Dopp accepting his proposal.

The next September, Ms. Dopp and Mr. MacDonald moved from his hometown to hers. Ms. Dopp described the method behind the choice as “a gradual development,” including that, within the years that they had been courting, “Kelly visited a bunch and ended up loving Buffalo.”

Mr. MacDonald, who had by no means lived exterior of Calgary, stated that at the beginning, “my mother and father had been apprehensive about medical health insurance and a job” for him in the USA. However they in the end endorsed the transfer, he added, as a result of “they knew how a lot we beloved one another.” And the couple didn’t fully uproot themselves from Calgary: they saved their condominium within the metropolis as a spot to remain once they go to.

Mr. MacDonald, who lately acquired a inexperienced card, plans to take the examination potential firefighters should go to get a job with the Buffalo Hearth Division. Ms. Dopp now works remotely as enterprise improvement consultant for the brewing firm Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis.

Their marriage ceremony, initially deliberate for 2021, was pushed to 2022 due to the pandemic. However all alongside, Ms. Dopp stated the 2 knew they wished to have fun “the place all of it started” in Mexico.

On Jan. 21, they had been married on the workplace of town clerk in Tonawanda, N.Y., and on Jan. 28, they held a second marriage ceremony celebration at Pueblo Bonito Sundown Seashore Golf & Spa resort in Cabo San Lucas.

In Mexico, Matthew Baudo, a buddy of the couple, led a ceremony on the seashore earlier than 65 company, most of whom had been vaccinated. They included Ms. Dopp’s mom and Mr. MacDonald’s mom; their fathers didn’t attend due to considerations about touring and Covid.

Earlier than the ceremony, one among Ms. Dopp’s bridesmaids delivered a bracelet from Mr. MacDonald to the bride, together with a observe that learn, “The primary time we stated goodbye to one another it broke each of our hearts and I informed you, ‘Sometime we’d stroll alongside the streets of gold.’ I don’t actually know what I imply by that however I knew it will be anyplace the place we’d stroll collectively.”

Mr. Baudo, who arrived to the seashore in a gown with a Canadian flag on one sleeve and an American flag on the opposite, stated in his remarks, “I don’t assume anybody right here is stunned that two individuals who passionately like to journey and have enjoyable managed to search out somebody from a distinct nation whereas visiting a rustic that neither had been residents of.”

Afterward, a reception was held on the resort’s Sky Pool Aquabar & Grill restaurant. Company arrived to search out pictures of tequila sunrises in glasses fabricated from Himalayan salt and, throughout a cocktail hour, loved burgers served in wrappers that learn MacDonalds.

“It was really our social gathering in paradise,” Ms. Dopp stated.

Reflecting on their relationship, the bride stated, “Who would have thought a firefighter and hockey goalie from Alberta and a beer rep and die laborious Payments fan from Buffalo would ever make it work with all the percentages and distance between us?”

On This Day

When Jan. 21, 2022

The place The workplace of town clerk in Tonawanda, N.Y.

In and Out Ms. Dopp and Mr. MacDonald saved their authorized union low-key. Each arrived to town clerk’s workplace in sweatshirts and denims. “It was signal the shape, ‘I do, I do,’” Ms. Dopp stated. “We didn’t wish to make it a factor.”

Fortune Teller When Mr. MacDonald purchased the Buffalo Payments sombrero after they first met, he had the chums she was touring with signal it. One in all them, Natalie Frost, wrote, “Go Payments and see you on the marriage ceremony.” At their celebration in Cabo San Lucas, they purchased a second Payments sombrero and had Ms. Frost, who served as a bridesmaid, signal it once more. “How did you see the long run?” Ms. Dopp recalled asking her.