A match made at the Shore turned into forever

June 18, 2022, in Cape May, N.J.

Andi and Brett met at the eighth and final bar on their first Christmas in July Wildwood Crest bike tour in 2014.

They were both 21. He was a lifeguard with the Beach Patrol, which hosts the bar crawl on bikes every year. She was spending the summer the way she’d spent most of them — at her parents’ beach house. That year, she had a summer bucket list: Beach Patrol Christmas in July, check! Along with the T-shirt, Andi got Brett’s phone number, but she didn’t think much of it.

Honestly, their conversation wasn’t all that memorable. Yet for the next couple of weekends, whenever Brett walked into a bar, he found himself looking around for Andi. “I would text her late at night, but she was having none of it,” he said. Had she responded with her own beach bar location, he would have immediately gone to meet her there. But “she would either not respond at all, or respond the next day.”

Andi, who grew up in North Wales, Montgomery County, was open to hanging out with Brett, but late at some bar was not the way she wanted to get to know anybody. One day she sat on her parents’ deck looking out across the bay to the pole that marked the last item on her summer bucket list. “I wanted to swim out to the pole and back, and I thought of Brett — since he was on Beach Patrol, he was certainly a good swimmer. He seemed the perfect partner for this task.”

Brett happily accepted Andi’s midday text request. “I was honored,” he said. The following day, he met Andi at her parents’ place, and he swam alongside her as she achieved her last summer goal.

“When we got back — and I will never forget this — her wonderful mother had this beautiful plate of nachos on the table for us,” said Brett, who is from Washington Township, Gloucester County. “That’s when I was like, ‘I like this family!’ ”

They ate the nachos, talked for several hours, and watched the sun set together. Their goodbye included a kiss.

“As I was getting ready to leave, I saw that my bike had been stolen,” Brett said. The 30-minute walk to his shared rental didn’t dampen his mood one bit.

The two saw each other as often as they could, but his return to the College of New Jersey and hers to Drexel University came much too soon after that big bay swim. By the next summer down the Shore, they were an official, exclusive couple.

Andi, who is now 30, graduated in 2014 with a bachelor’s in design and merchandising, got an apartment in Philadelphia with some friends, and went to work. She is now a merchandise planner for the Free People clothing company.

Brett, who is now 29, earned a bachelor’s in communications in 2015 but already knew this wasn’t the right career for him. He did not know what was right. To save money, he moved home with his parents. It was a frustrating feeling, Brett said, but Andi helped him through it. “Once I told her I wanted to go back to school for education, she motivated me. She told me that she knew I was going to be a great teacher one day. Thank God she was there.” Brett earned his master’s degree in education from Wilmington University in 2020. He now teaches math at Gloucester City Middle School.

In February 2020, the couple moved into a Fairmount apartment, where they still live. “It was right when COVID hit, and soon we were stuck there together almost all the time,” Andi said. But neither of them minded.

“She is the most loyal friend I have,” said Brett. “She would do anything for me, and it’s so nice to know that — I never had anyone locked in on me that way. Also, she’s super-driven with her job and funny as hell.”

Andi said she admires the way Brett can so quickly form meaningful relationships. “He exudes positive energy, and people — all different types of people — want to be around him. He is a source of comfort to everyone in his life. This makes him really special, and it is the reason he is so good at his career,” she said. “He is also super kind, very sweet, and very thoughtful. And he is the funniest person I know — if you can laugh every day, that’s a good life.”

In November 2020, Brett spoke to Andi’s parents, Joseph and Julia, and his parents, Jill and Erik, about his plan to propose. Then he asked his best friend, Shane, and his sister, Julia, for a little help.

“Shane has never been to the Art Museum steps,” Brett told Andi. “We have to take him there.”

Andi was game — the steps are one of the couple’s favorite Philly places, so of course they should show them to Shane.

At the top of the stairs, Brett knelt and Julia started snapping pictures.

Andi looked so stunned that Brett felt the need to assure her. “This is real,” he said. “Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” Andi replied.

The couple married on the Lobster House deck in Cape May. “The whole atmosphere of Cape May and Wildwood Crest are so sentimental to us, and so comfortable for us, we couldn’t have pictured our wedding anywhere else,” said Brett.

He and Andi asked her father’s cousin Richard to marry them, in part because they admire the fun-loving marriage of Richard and his wife, Melanie. Richard became ordained online and he, Andi, and Brett wrote the ceremony together. “We wanted it to be traditional, but very lighthearted, short and sweet, but still meaningful,” said Andi.

Richard shared some stories about Andi and Brett, individually and as a couple. The bride and groom chose not to write their own vows, but rather to exchange their private thoughts and feelings in letters that each read when alone on the morning of their wedding. They recited the same vows that Andi’s sister, Nicole, and her husband, Steve, had chosen. “She married a lifeguard, too, and we held our reception at the same spot,” said Andi.

The couple took a boat from the Lobster House to that spot — the Corinthian Yacht Club — to celebrate with 250 guests.

“We really wanted it to be casual and fun, but super tasteful, and we wanted the decor to involve things that are meaningful to us,” said Andi. “We wanted it to be like the best night of the summer and then somebody threw a wedding,” said Brett.

The couple sought the help of event designer House of Catherine to pull the right coastal vibe together. The seating chart was a big wave with names written on surfboards — a nod to Brett’s affinity for that sport. Brett and Andi’s favorite beer comes from Cape May Brewing Co., so they and their friends and family saved empties, which Andi’s mother turned the empty cans into candles. Guests entering the reception found shelves full of cold Cape May Brewing beers. At the end of the night, the same shelves held a gift — the candles.

“We had a really incredible band — Go Go Gadget — and everyone was dancing, listening to music during the sunset, and having a good time,” said Andi.

“I was about 50 feet from the dance floor, and looking at all of the people who mean the most to me having a good time was a euphoric, almost out-of-body experience,” said Brett. “This was our wedding, and it was one of the coolest moments ever.”

The couple spent 10 days on Maui and Oahu. They enjoyed hiking and beach time, snorkeling with tropical fish and turtles, and surfing.

The house-hunting couple hopes to find their next home in Haddon Township, New Jersey.

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