Thanks, Tinder!

Hair and Makeup by Curator Kate Johnson of Kate Johnson Artistry:

This love story all started on Tinder - turns out these two cuties had similar Eastern European backgrounds that drew them to one another! Scroll to read how it all unfolded and check out their wedding day photos at The Armour House.

My husband and I met on the app you'd never think would end in marriage - Tinder. One of the first questions he had asked me was whether I was Russian. He knew just by reading my name what the answer was. We soon found we had fairly similar Eastern European upbringings. I was born in Ukraine and he was born in Israel, where his family had moved to from Latvia. I spent the first 5 years of my life in Ukraine before I moved to the suburbs of Chicago.

Hair and Makeup by Curator Kate Johnson of Kate Johnson Artistry

He had finished his military service in Israel and was recruited to the swim team at the University of Missouri, where he studied computer science. We found common ground in Kansas City, Missouri - where I was attending medical school and he was working. The first month we knew each other was probably the month we had the least amount of sleep during our lives. We became best friends and spent hours talking about anything and everything. I met his parents later that year when they came to visit him in Kansas City. My Russian definitely proved to be useful to communicate with them. We moved in together about a year later. When I matched to the Lurie pediatric residency program in Chicago, he didn't think twice about following me to my favorite city.

In September 2018 while we were visiting Napa Valley, he planned the now second greatest day of our lives and got down on one knee in a hot air balloon (with a photographer to capture it all)! We spent the next 10 months planning our big day. Every detail had our personal touch to it, and although it took a lot of time and research, I'm happy to say we did it all without a planner. The road to our wedding had a lot of ups and downs. Yaniv lost his dad to leukemia just 10 days before our wedding. It was a difficult loss for both of us, especially right before such a happy occasion. Despite the rainy day we had while taking photos on our wedding day, the sun came out at the end of our ceremony. We knew Yaniv's father, Chaim, was watching over us. It turned out to be the best day of our lives and we only wish it lasted longer!