Love: Lisa Felder & Brent Swartz

At 15, Lisa and her high school boyfriend thought it was pretty cool to hang with the older crowd - his big sister and her friends, one of whom was Brent.

High school ended, but the friendships stuck. In 2006, Lisa, then in her early 20s, took her then-boyfriend to a gathering to meet the group. He bristled around her buddy Brent, telling Lisa afterward he sensed that guy was interested in her.

Later that year, the boyfriend "broke my heart," said Lisa. Oh well, she thought, and adopted her pug, Cutie.

About two months into Lisa's singledom, she, Brent, and their other pals met up outside the Linc for a monster tailgate - the Cowboys were in town, now with T.O. on their side. Everyone was having fun together, but Lisa kept looking at Brent, wondering whether her ex was right about his being interested.

That thought, plus a drink or two, gave her courage to flirt. Brent noticed - and he liked it.

"Now that we were both adults, the five-year gap in our ages didn't matter," he said. Was the ex right about his interest? "Well, yeah! She's an extremely attractive woman. I think any guy walking down the street would be interested."

It was a great game and a beautiful night. By the time it was over, the two had smooched. "That was weird," Brent said to the friend he'd just kissed. Lisa agreed. Brent asked her out.

By the second date, it wasn't weird, but completely natural and awesome. "She's sweet, beautiful, outgoing, charming," Brent said. "She has a little bit of fire that keeps me in check."

"He's confident, and he's a gentleman," said Lisa. "He's open, loving, caring, handsome - everything any woman would want in a man."

Brent, who owns Swartz Custom Building, and Lisa, who owns a residential cleaning company and is also a fitness instructor, continue to enjoy sporting events together. "He loves, loves, loves sports," Lisa said, "and I love tailgating."

By their second baseball season together, the Newtown Square natives had season tickets. They saw the Phils play Game 3 of the World Series and went to the victory parade ceremony. By their fifth baseball season - 2011 - they watched away games from the living room of their home in Manayunk.

In 2013, the quickest way to tick Lisa off was to ask some version of "Why aren't you guys engaged yet?"

"I started telling people to stop asking me and ask him," she said.

Brent, who is now 35, and Lisa, now 31, joined his family for Christmas Eve dinner at the Rittenhouse Hotel. As a gift, his parents got rooms for everyone. After dinner, they walked through the park with Brent's sister and her boyfriend. It was beautiful and, Lisa thought, would have made a great spot to propose. But no big questions were asked.

The next morning, the car ride back to Manayunk was not pleasant. "We were fighting like banshees," Brent said.

When Lisa said, "A piece of me dies every year," he wished he were anywhere instead of in that car. But Brent anticipated a big change in her mood once they got home and exchanged Christmas gifts.

He handed her a large, wrapped box. Lisa figured it was, disappointingly, the All-Clad soup pot she'd asked for. But inside that box was another wrapped box, and another and another. The small seventh one was a jewelry box. Heart beating fast, she opened it and found a piece of candy coal.

"Is this some kind of a sick joke?" she asked.

When Lisa looked up, Brent was on one knee, holding open a lighted ring case with an engagement ring sparkling inside.

As his phone played Bruno Mars' "Marry You," Brent asked, "Will you make me miserable for the rest of my life?"

"I don't think I said anything," Lisa recalled. "I just cried."

Lisa and Brent are lifelong Catholics, and their traditional ceremony with a full Mass was held at their Manayunk church, St. John the Baptist. "It was so emotional," Lisa said. "It is arguably the most beautiful building you could ever walk into," Brent said, "and it really feels like the House of God."

After the ceremony, the couple and their 106 guests headed to the couple's secular church - Citizens Bank Park. "It was awesome," Brent said. They had brought bats and balls for photo props, and the empty batting cages where Phillies greats and to-be-greats have taken swings were just too tempting. Brent hit a few, nearly beaning the photographer in the process.

The guests enjoyed themselves, relatively calmly, in the Diamond Club until the arrival of a special green guest who makes it his business to get a crowd rowdy. "When the Phanatic came, it changed the party," Lisa said.

"We just had so much fun. "We probably had too much to drink, I'm not going to lie."

At cake-cutting time, the beautiful ceremonial tools turned into fencing swords in the hands of the couple. Eventually, the cake was cut - and smashed in many faces.

The scoreboard lighted up with congratulations to Lisa and Brent. "We had stared at it hundreds of times," he said, "and to see it with our names on it was just really cool."

Walking down the aisle "was the most out-of-body experience I think I've ever had," Lisa said, struggling for a way to describe the incredible, surreal way she felt. Surrounded by family and her closest friends, she was about to marry the man she loved. Lisa has a strong relationship with her family, but she said that because she was adopted, she always longed for a biological connection with someone. "My biggest thing in life is to have my own child."

A sense of joy settled over Brent after the ceremony, during hugs and pictures. "Most of the bridal party is my true-to-life family, and the rest are chosen family, and it was just great having them there," he said. "And then I have this beautiful woman who, for some reason, wants to spend the rest of her life with me. Right then, it was really real."

A bargain: In the stressful weeks just before the wedding, Lisa took her Honda in for an oil change and settled herself in to work on wedding stuff during the wait. Realizing her laptop battery was fading, she asked the woman sitting by the outlet whether she'd mind plugging it in. "Are you finishing a paper?" the woman asked. When Lisa said she was working on her wedding program, the woman announced she used to be a wedding planner and asked whether she could help. In short order, Brinda made the perfect program and saved Lisa about six hours of aggravation. "I asked what I could give her for her help, and she said just to pay it forward."

The splurge: There are less-expensive reception venues, but only one where the couple has attended more than 200 baseball games together.

In the future, probably on a whim, to someplace warm with boats.

Officiant: The Rev. John J. Kelly, Parochial Vicar, St. John the Baptist, Philadelphia.

Venues: St. John the Baptist and Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia.

Catering: Aramark.

Photography: Susan Beard Design Photography, Philadelphia.

Flowers: John Kevin Gallagher & Co., Philadelphia.

Dress: La Bella Moda, Conshohocken.

Music: DJ Bizz, Philadelphia.

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