Katie Rafferty of Red Hook, New York and Jonathan Risk of Cape Cod, Massachusetts are set to wed at Regatta Place on Friday August 9, 2019.

How We Met

I graduated from UConn in May 2012 and moved to NYC for a teaching fellowship on June 4th, 2012. I moved in with a friend from school, and went out with her and some friends for some Sunday Funday-fun. I was young and excited to move to the city, and excited to meet new people and start my life there. The second bar I went to, I walked up to a guy and asked what he was drinking. He told me the name of the beer, and I poked fun at it, but we soon learned that we lived very close to each other. Jonathan took my number and then I returned to my friends. A few drinks later, along with a move to some bar seats, my friends and I saw that these ladies next to us were very excited to receive drinks from an unknown fellow. We overheard the bartender say that they were from the “guy over there.” They were super excited, and my friend and I said how nice it was. I reached down and received a text saying, “Those were supposed to be for you! I’m colorblind and I told the bartender to send them to the girl in the red and her friend…” (I was wearing orange.) We went on our first date to a wine bar nearby, and soon found that we lived on the same block. We’ve been together ever since, and it all started at The Pony Bar on the Upper East Side. We recently had our engagement party there following our Newport proposal!

Our Proposal Story

My fiance and I often frequent Newport. My family summered in Rhode Island, my brother lives in Providence, and Jonathan went to Salve Regina. We are constantly traveling there and love going with the same core friends or exposing new friends to our favorite city! We had planned to go out to Newport around Halloween with friends, and I’d narrowed it down to a couple weekends…We arrived Friday night and went to Midtown Oyster bar, and danced the night away at The Blues Cafe. The next morning we stopped at Cru Cafe for breakfast, and then suited up and went to Newport Vineyards for a day of wine tasting. Despite it being October, it was an absolutely GORGEOUS day! While taking photos in the vineyard, Jon popped the question! Our friend popped out with a camera while we continued our celebrations from Newport Vineyards to Greenvale and then some of our favorite bars. We dined at the Mooring, and spent the night barhopping between our favorite watering holes. It was the PERFECT weekend, and each of these places means even more to me now each time we go back!