Love: Colleen Dorrian & Joe Giunta

Joe, now 37, and Colleen, 28, have known each other since childhood. Exactly when they met is hard to pinpoint, Joe said. Colleen's mother, Pat, and Joe's aunt, Jeannie, became close friends when their children attended St. Kevin's Catholic school in Springfield. To Joe, Colleen was nothing more than one of "the Dorrian kids" - that nice family he saw growing up whenever the Giuntas went to Aunt Jeannie's for big gatherings.

The paths of Joe and Colleen crossed rarely in adulthood. They said a quick hello in 2002, when Cabrini and Neumann Colleges faced off on the basketball court. She was a senior playing for Cabrini, he was director of athletics at Neumann.

Then in late spring of 2004, they met again at one of Aunt Jeannie's parties. Jeannie Smyth, Pat Dorrian and Joe's sister, Marissa Giunta, all pestered Joe to talk to Colleen. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Joe has eyes, and he had noticed that Colleen had become a beautiful woman. But she was soon leaving for a six-month, postgraduation jaunt to London. And he wasn't much for talking to women while family members watched.

Neither Colleen nor Joe had trouble finding dates on their own, but Jeannie and Pat were convinced the two were perfect for each other, so they did not give up.

In March 2005, Joe ran into his aunt at a St. Joe's basketball game. "At halftime, she said, 'Joe, you have got to call Colleen Dorrian. You two would be perfect for each other,' and she goes into her bag, and she already has the number written down."

Joe took the number. He had not been meeting women lately whom he wanted to see past the first or second date. And he knew Colleen was a good person - she came from a whole family of good people. Besides, whatever the outcome, he could get Aunt Jeannie and Mrs. Dorrian off his case. "I remember in my head saying, 'What the hell, I'll call her,' " he said.

A few days later, he did. And Joe doesn't mind saying that his aunt and Colleen's mom were right all along.

Joe and Colleen love the beach, and in early April they spent a weekend in Ocean City, N.J. Joe was a man with a plan, and after dinner, when Colleen headed up to the room, he persuaded a staff member to help him execute it the next morning, right after breakfast.

The next day, as they waited for the check, Joe saw the staffer head down to the beach. The pouring rain added to his extraordinary case of nerves. "The wind was so strong it was blowing the water over the edge of the pool," he remembered. Was it miserable enough to keep even Colleen from taking a walk along the shore?

He suggested a walk, and she looked at him like he was crazy. "Come on," he coaxed. "We're not going to be down here for a couple of months. Let's just go put our feet in the water and then we'll leave."

Somehow he persuaded her to go. As they walked along, Joe saw Colleen notice a bottle sticking out of the sand, but she walked right by it. He had to think of something. "What was that? What were you looking at?" he asked her. "There was a bottle over there," she said. Joe walked over, "Look, I think there's a note in it," he said, pulling it out of the sand. Colleen, who takes pains to avoid germs, said: "I'm not touching it."

Joe took the bottle to Colleen, removed the cork, and started tapping to get the note out. It hit her that this was not a random bottle, and that the note was meant for her. She took the bottle and as Joe got down on one knee in the wet sand, she read the note:

Colleen - I can't imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone but you. I have loved you since the very beginning and want to love you forever. Will you marry me? I love you with all my heart! Joe

Joe's family lived in three Delaware County towns, the last of which was Springfield, where Colleen has lived all of her life, until now. The couple now live in the Art Museum neighborhood of Philadelphia.

Joe is director of athletics and recreation at Cabrini College, Colleen's alma mater. Colleen is special assistant to the president at Philadelphia University.

The couple held their wedding in Jamaica. Both being Catholic, they chose a church wedding instead of a beach wedding - but the ceremony included several Jamaican traditions. At one point during the ceremony, the bride and groom knelt at the altar, and the priest placed one end of his stole on Joe's head, the other end on Colleen's head. During the Mass, the couple sat separately - he with his best man, she with her maid of honor. Their attendants escorted them to the altar to sign their wedding certificate in front of their 37 guests.

So that friends and family who couldn't travel could celebrate with them, Joe and Colleen held a local reception at Immaculata University, which was attended by about 220. The couple brought a bit of both Jamaica and Ocean City - the site of their proposal - to this reception. The centerpieces featured shells, sand and candles. The candy included Johnson's Popcorn and Fralinger's Salt Water Taffy and Fudge. Island music and daiquiris, margaritas and pina coladas harked back to Jamaica, as did a slide show displaying photos from the wedding and the smaller Jamaican reception.

nolead begins

At the wedding, Colleen's brother-in-law, Tom, read from the Book of Solomon - with a twist. When he got to the part about the dove's cooing, he demonstrated, "Coo! Coo!" And into this verse, which references birds, Tom slipped his own reference to the Birds: "And the Eagles will soar, and the Falcons will fall," he said - a sly reference to the next day's football game. It must have worked: The Eagles won, 27-14.

When Joe was standing at the altar, waiting for his bride, he could see trees and the ocean through the open back doors of the church. "Then I see her appear, and she walks in with her dad," he said. "All I could think of is how beautiful she looks, and that it's finally here."

A bargain: The couple did not hire a professional photographer to shoot their wedding ceremony. "We had 37 free photographers," Joe said of their guests.

The splurge: Holding a second, local reception.

Five days at Sandals Resort in Montego Bay.

Officiant

Father Carl Clarke of the Blessed Sacrament Cathedral, Montego Bay, Jamaica.

Venues

Blessed Sacrament; Hotel RIU, Montego Bay; the Great Hall at Immaculata University, Immaculata.

Caterer

Teri Tenaglia, TNT Productions, Media.

Photographer

Their wedding guests.

Steel Jamaican band on the beach in Montego Bay; Teri Tenaglia, TNT Productions, at the local reception.

Irini's Originals, Wilmington.