So, in July 2009, the Potomac native, who spent eight years in Texas for college and business school, started searching for a new spot. Though her parents didn’t love the idea of her living in the District, she settled on a place at 18th and S streets.
Edward Zielinski explained that he was president of the condo board and welcomed Thornett to the building. After trading numbers in case Thornett had problems with her unit, she invited him to sit down for a beer.
“Hey, this gorgeous girl moved into the building,” Zielinski, now 30, later told his roommate. But he didn’t know if she was single. Fearing he’d create an awkward situation, he decided not to use her number for anything other than official condo business.
But Sasha Rosen, the friend who was with Thornett that night, was sure the attraction was mutual.
“He seemed like a really nice, super-cute guy. And Lyndsey was excited but didn’t really know what to expect,” Rosen says. “We’re both pretty skeptical of really nice, super-cute guys.”
Thornett’s interest grew through chats with Zielinski, who told her he was a finance professional at Fannie Mae and one of five siblings from Oregon. He’d also started a walking tour company, DCByFoot.com, with one of his brothers.
But even after months, neither was sure where the other stood. Once Zielinski asked whether he could check out her apartment, and, he recalls, “You could feel the tension of ‘Is he gonna make a move?’ But I failed to make a move.”
In late October, Thornett, now 29, was watching a football game at Buffalo Billiards when she got a text from Zielinski asking whether she wanted to join to his birthday celebration around the corner at James Hoban’s, an Irish bar. She did, and as they stood by the jukebox, Zielinski told Thornett he thought she was pretty.
A week later, they went out again with a group of friends and eventually found themselves alone. At another jukebox, this time at Darlington House, he kissed her.
Before their first official date, at Hook in Georgetown the following weekend, they met up at a U2 concert they’d both planned to attend. That night, the two posed for a picture that Thornett developed and gave to her mother, who knew about her daughter’s crush on Zielinski.
The two began spending evenings together and exploring the city on weekends. “From the moment I met him, it was so comfortable,” Thornett says. “And it reminded me of being in college. Just being able to go upstairs at night. It was just really fun.”
Within weeks, he was invited to her parents’ home in Potomac. He saw the picture of him and Thornett at the concert displayed among family photos on the mantle. Her mother was embarrassed, “but I liked that,” Zielinski recalls. “It was cool that she had our picture up.”
Though Thornett often told Rosen the relationship “seemed too good to be true,” she let down her guard quickly. “I was so happy,” she says. “It was just finally easy, and I always was kind of hoping that I would find something that would just feel right and be easy.”
And it was apparent that Zielinski felt the same. “I just knew that he adored Lyndsey,” says Rosen. “Every other word out of his mouth was, ‘Isn’t Lyndsey so beautiful?’ ”
By the time they went to Jamaica together the following March, he was sure he wanted to marry her. “Everything felt different,” he says. “I was completely excited. Where I would do anything to spend time with her, to make her happy, to have fun with her.”
In October 2010, he took her back to Hook. And later, on a bench by the Georgetown waterfront, Zielinski got down on one knee and asked Thornett to be his wife.
The two planned an Aug. 27 wedding at Meridian House, where cocktail hour would be held among the property’s linden trees. But plans changed when an earthquake struck four days before the event, causing slight damage to the building. And weather reports indicated Hurricane Irene was barreling toward the region. As they worried about their 145 guests’ travel plans, their wedding planner, Jamie Sears, prayed the electricity would stay on at least long enough to get through dinner. But it stayed on all night. And every vendor and all but a small handful of guests made it to the wedding.
As blowing branches scratched against the stained-glass windows of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church on Connecticut Avenue NW during their ceremony, Pastor Jan P. Lookingbill addressed the couple. “Earthquake, wind and rain cannot stop love,” he said. “Love cannot be stopped — not even by Irene.”
Resource: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/weddings/on-love-love-cannot-be-stopped--not-even-by-irene/2011/08/29/gIQALci6wJ_story.html
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