Jess and Evan met in 2010 as students at SUNY New Paltz where they became fast friends. By senior year, they were getting coffee multiple times a week to discuss their lives and their love of books and movies.

After college, Evan moved to Boston and Jess to NYC, keeping in touch along the way.

After many years of coffee, craft beers, political debates, and horror movies, they finally went out on their first date in Fall of 2019. The rest, is history... or rather, historical.

The pandemic hit just as they got more serious and faced with the choice of potentially not seeing each other for "8 months" (as they thought at the time), Evan asked Jess to move in with him into the Rieger family home. Together, Evan, Jess, Andrea, Kieth, and the rest of the Riegers were a pandemic pod watching movies, tv shows, and celebrating milestones, like Evan's 30th.

Once things returned to normal, Jess and Evan moved to Brooklyn and then again to Wappingers Falls. They have adopted one rescue munchkin pumpkin named Ventura and one velociraptor bunny rabbit named Lily.

Getting married in the Hudson Valley, where they live together once more brings their story full circle from the Hawk's Nest of SUNY New Paltz to their beautiful venue at Indian Ridge in Highland.