Their Friday the 13th wedding is a love letter to each other and to Philly

Meet Nicole Wyglendowski and Dan Barone, a West Kensington couple whose wedding this Friday, Oct. 13, next to Eastern State Penitentiary, is an ode to their time together in Philly.

• Road to love: “The whole day is like a map of our story,” Wyglendowski said.

• Sweet move: “We won’t do a cake cutting, but we will make sure everyone watches us eat our first cannoli together,” Barone said.

When Nicole Wyglendowski and Dan Barone moved into their first apartment together in Fairmount in March 2020, and the world began to shut down, they found comfort in each other and the walks they took together to Corinthian Gardens, a small park next to Eastern State Penitentiary.

On Friday, Oct. 13, the couple will return to the garden next to the prison where their love blossomed to officially unite their bond in marriage. In their first act as a married couple, they’ll nosh on cheesesteaks and pizza delivered on-site by Fairmount Pizza.

Guests will then head to Philadelphia Brewing Company in Kensington, where they’ll sip on coffee from Nilaa’s, a Philadelphia roaster the couple fell in love with at a local farmers market, and dine on food from Vientiane Bistro, a Lao restaurant in Kensington they can’t get enough of.

Instead of a wedding cake, there will be cannolis from Isgro Pastries, and in guests’ gift bags, there will be Philadelphia Brewing Company beer and magnets from PAWS, the animal welfare nonprofit through which the couple has fostered more than 50 cats and kittens.

“It’s almost all so Philly that we forgot it’s Philly,” Wyglendowski said. “For us, it’s our lives. This is all the different pieces of our lives that have become very important pieces of the puzzle for us.”

Engaged in June, Wyglendowski, a special-education teacher with the Philadelphia School District, and Barone, who works in sales for a transportation software company, have planned a wedding in four months that exemplifies their love for each other and Philly.

“We’re transplants. We did choose this life,” Barone said. “It’s really important for our friends and family to see all the pieces.”

Even the day — typically considered an unlucky one — was carefully chosen.

“We planned this all around having a Friday the 13th wedding,” Wyglendowski said. “For no other reason than we think it’s funny.”

And what could be more Philly than that?

Wyglendowski and Barone, both 28 and now living in West Kensington, met at a party their sophomore year at Rowan University.

In 2018, after Wyglendowski spent a year teaching in Taiwan (and Barone came for a visit), she moved to Philadelphia.

“I wanted to find out if I could teach in the Philadelphia School District,” Wyglendowski said. “I found out, and now they can’t get rid of me.”

Barone followed quickly behind, moving in with friends.

“I knew I wanted to be here because she was here,” he said.

Two years later, the couple moved in together for the first time in their Fairmount apartment, and as the COVID-19 pandemic closed the world around them, they created their own world with each other.

They’d take walks to nearby Corinthian Gardens, where they could ponder about the world and life together or, for a moment, forget about it all. At home, they shared their time with the cats and kittens they fostered through PAWS, and on birthdays and holidays, they gifted each other handwritten love letters, something they still do.

When businesses began to reopen, they’d get breakfast sandwiches at Christie’s Deli and walk through the Fairmount Farmers Market on Thursday afternoons, where they’d grab Nilaa Coffee.

This June, the couple bought their first home in West Kensington, where they’ve loved taking walks in Norris Square Park and getting meals at Vientiane Bistro.

Shortly after moving in, Wyglendowski came home one day to signs leading her upstairs to a stool with an empty ring box and a love note on top of it. She ran downstairs screaming, “Yes, I do!” but Barone reminded her he hadn’t proposed yet.

“I had the ring with me, and we walked to Norris Square Park,” he said. “I cried the whole way.”

Barone popped the question with a ring from Safian & Rudolph Jewelers on Jewelers’ Row, and Wyglendowski’s sister popped out of the bushes to take photos.

Then, the couple began planning their wedding, using the pieces of their Philly love story as building blocks.

Barone’s family will stay in a short-term rental right next door to the couple’s first apartment in Fairmont, and Christie’s Deli will deliver breakfast sandwiches on Friday morning.

“We’re starting the day on the first street we started living on,” Barone said.

The festivities will then move to Corinthian Gardens, where a micro ceremony for 18 people will be held. The bride will wear a long peach dress and a veil from Madison Chamberlain in Fishtown (before changing into a short pink dress for the reception).

“If you put me in a white dress in a country club, I don’t know what I would do,” Wyglendowski said. “I don’t wear white, and we don’t go to country clubs.”

Then comes the pizza and cheesesteaks, the reception for 100 guests at Philadelphia Brewing Company, and the cannoli from Isgro’s. Music will be provided by a cellist and vocalist who are friends of the bride.

The couple doesn’t have a honeymoon planned because Wyglendowski has to get back to teaching, but they hope to take a European trip next year.

Until then, they’ll continue writing the next chapter of their Philadelphia love story.

“I love Philly,” Wyglendowski said. “It’s given us so much.”

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