Any ring will do, she said. He gave her one off a cupcake. Try again, she said.

Isabella Cannuscio and Colin McManus

May 27, 2018

THE INTRODUCTION: Colin McManus was 18 when he moved from Boston, Massachusetts, to Delaware in March 2008 to skate with Anastasia Cannuscio in national and international ice dancing competitions. When Colin met her sister, Isabella, it was love at first sight. For him. Not so much for her. Bella, a 17-year-old who was being homeschooled as she pursued her own ice skating career, friend zoned Colin hard and fast. He liked her sense of humor, her personality and, of course, thought she was lovely. They were all training at the University of Delaware and all living in a townhouse in Bear. Colin decided to play the long game and wait until their living circumstances changed. In that year of living together, they got to know each other well, texting when they were apart. "It very well might have been my shameless way to lay on the charm," Colin says now. By the end of the year, she thought he was super nice, had a great sense of humor and a great personality, too. In April 2009, he and friend Kyle Herring moved into their own place in Newark. A couple of months later, Bella called Colin suggesting they go out to dinner "as friends." 

THE FIRST DATE: Colin took Bella to dinner one night in May at Home Grown Cafe in Newark. She picked him up, but he paid. Colin considered it a first date, and he didn't know that Bella was considering it a kind of a trial run. "I knew it was going to be our first date," Bella says. "I was just waiting for him to take the next step."  After dinner, they walked around the University of Delaware Green and sat on a park bench and talked for hours. When he stood up, he held out his hand, and she took it. "So, I think we can safely say that this was our first date or 'dinner as more than just friends,'" Colin says. 

THE FIRST KISS: The next week the couple agreed to have dinner at Colin's apartment and watch "Get Smart." Colin went to the grocery store to get her favorite flavor of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, Coffee Heath Bar Crunch. They kissed on the sofa. And, yes, Colin said, that kiss was "absolutely" worth waiting a year for. By 2012 they had moved in together but were still sharing a house with other skaters. A couple of years later, they moved into their current home. By 2014, Bella had retired from skating, but Colin and Stasia were still competing, which meant a lot of time apart for Colin and Bella. Bella began working as skating coach and then took a part-time job helping to manage UD's rink. They talked a lot about marriage in the 18 months leading up to the engagement. One day, Colin said, Bella sat him down and told him, "I'll take anything you give me," meaning a ring. He brought home a plastic ring from the top of a cupcake. "How about this?" he asked. "You'll have to do better than that," she said.

THE PROPOSAL: They had been dating for six years by Labor Day weekend of 2015. Colin took Bella to dinner on that Friday, June 4, at one of their favorite restaurants, Pizza by Elizabeths in Greenville. Colin kept looking at his phone, which was irritating Bella. He finally told her he was texting his sister about the surprise anniversary party they were having the next day for their parents, which of course he wasn't. When Bella and Colin returned to their townhouse, Bella noticed the light was on in the guest room. It confused and frightened her. When Colin asked her to just go turn off the light, she argued with him. "Seriously, someone could have broken into our house and you want ME to go in there?” she asked him. When he insisted, she opened the door and found string lights on the window, flowers on the bed and a dress with shoes laid out with signs. The signs read “perfect dress,” “perfect shoes,” "for the perfect girl.” As Bella went over to the flowers and read “for the perfect girl," she turned around and found Colin down on one knee. She started to cry and demanded, "Is that for me?” As if there was some other girl in the room, Colin says. "It felt like I was down on that knee for an eternity while she was making sense of everything," Colin said. "When I finally gave her the ring, I remember her hand was shaking so much I couldn’t even get it on her finger." They called their parents, but he told her they would show everyone at the anniversary party the next day. When they arrived at Hopewell Winery in New Jersey, she opened the door to a surprise engagement party filled with family and friends. "He must have been pretty sure I was going to say yes," she says. Colin had a whole team working on the proposal scene and party. "The surprise party was my way of celebrating us," he said. "The life of an elite athlete is always rigorous not just to you, but to everyone around you. I felt it was really important to celebrate how much her love and support meant to me." He and Stasia retired from competition in 2017. By then Bella had been working full time at UD's rink as a figure skating coach, and Colin started coaching full time, too.

THE WEDDING: The couple married May 27, 2018, at Abington Art Center in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, and held their reception at Cairnwood Estate in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. Before they became engaged, Bella and Colin had traveled to Newport, Rhode Island, where they fell in love with the mansions. Colin Googled estates in the area, and came across Cairnwood, which they both loved at first sight. Once they booked it, they booked the art center for the wedding. The weather wasn't great, so they went with the "rainy day" option and moved the reception inside and later decided it had been better that way. During the service, they had three readings, one by each of their godmothers, Stacy Homa, Sherri Martin-Gould and Colleen Busch. When Bella and Colin were exchanging rings, Colin's ring got stuck on his knuckle, and Bella had to struggle with it to get it on. But no matter. "If we could wake up and relive that day for the rest of our lives we would," Colin said. "It was absolutely perfect."

THE DRESS: Bella's gown was really three pieces, a strapless pale grey corset, a full layered ballroom skirt and a grey sash, all from BHLDN, a wedding company owned by Anthropologie. She had gone to NYC to shop at Kleinfeld's and also booked an appointment at BHLDN. "The second I tried it on, I knew it was the one," Bella says. "It was something I never expected to like on me because I am a very petite person, 4-foot-11. I felt like a princess all night!"

SOMETHING OLD AND BLUE: Her grandfather George Homa's state police stripes, which she pinned under her dress. He had died in 2017, and she had been grieving that he wouldn't be able to be at the wedding.

SOMETHING BORROWED: The bride had borrowed earrings from her grandmother to wear at the wedding but forgot them at home. So she borrowed the earrings she had bought her mother to wear at the wedding and wore them herself. 

SOMETHING NEW: Her dress and the anklet she wore.

THE RECEPTION: Bella did the decor herself, with help from a few family members. She used accents of gold and blush, which perfectly fit Cairnwood. Their special champagne glasses had pedigree. When they were helping organize Poppop George's house after he died, they opened a cabinet to find two gold-rimmed champagne glasses sitting there by themselves. "We took that as a sign and set them aside," Colin said. Because best man Kyle and maid of honor Anastasia knew them so well, their speeches were a hilarious mix of funny and sentimental stories. But the most hilarious moment of the night came when Bella threw her bouquet to the wrong group of guests. "Bad aim," Colin says. "I had to do a redo," Bella admits.

MOST POPULAR GIFTS: Mastercard, Visa and Disney gift cards, which the couple says pretty much paid for their honeymoon.

THE MOST SENTIMENTAL GIFT: Colin gave Bella a bracelet that had two photos of her and her Poppop, which she wore around her ankle during the wedding. Between that and the police stripes pinned to her skirt, Bella felt like her grandfather was there.

THE HONEYMOON: The newlyweds are huge Disney fans who are annual pass holders. They took a seven-day Disney cruise through the Caribbean with stops at St. Maarten, St. Thomas and Castaway Cay in the Bahamas. They ziplined in St. Maarten and spent a day catamaran sailing and snorkeling in St. Thomas.

THE FAMILY TREE: The bride is the daughter of Kelly Cannuscio of Mays Landing, New Jersey, and Tony Cannuscio of Ventnor City, New Jersey. The groom is the son of Tammi and James McManus of Saugus, Massachusetts.

WHAT'S NEXT: The couple plan to continue living in Newark for the next few years. Both work at the University of Delaware Fred Rust Ice Arena, Colin as a figure skating coach and Bella as coordinator of the skating program. They have thought about moving to Middletown one day and would someday like to have kids and a dog.

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