Our Story
Our bridal party had questions. We have answers. We hope you enjoy perusing some of our favorite moments, movies, and memories as much as we enjoyed reminiscing about them!
Sophia Stefanovski
Maid of Honor
Friend of the Couple & Car Ride Phone Call Aficionado
You both have spent significant time abroad, and your relationship has covered some serious long-distance. What is your favorite place you've traveled together?
Ryan: Elisabeth and I are lucky to both have a city halfway around the world that we’ve called home for some small amount of time. I spent the year after graduation living in Dublin, while Elisabeth spent a portion of Law School in a tiny (but exceptionally chic) Parisian studio. While Dublin is my second home, and Paris is special to Elisabeth, my favorite place we’ve traveled together is somewhere that is neither mine nor hers, but ours.
Last year, before the wedding of two dear friends in Ireland, Elisabeth and I spent four days exploring Iceland. We were soaked to our bones by towering waterfalls, we admired flocks of almost-unbelievably cute puffins, we learned how difficult it is to park a car in Reykjavík on “Culture Night", and revelled in experiencing a beautiful place for the first time together.
Elisabeth: I paid Ryan a visit in Ireland while he was living in Dublin following our graduation from Notre Dame. As you can imagine, Ryan was more than eager to introduce me to his local Dublin haunts. However, nothing was more thrilling than discovering an unknown corner of Ireland for the first time together.
While touring around the Emerald Isle for the week, we took a ferry from Galway to the Aran Islands. Our day on Inishmore was spent biking around the island. Stops along the bike path included a quaint cafe where we ate soda bread with smoked salmon and a boutique where we selected Aran sweaters hand-knit by the shopkeeper, Rose, and the other women in her family. Other stop-offs from the trail featured hikes to ancient Gaelic ruins and greeting the island’s woolly sheep. Windswept from peering over sheer cliffs but invigorated by the cool Atlantic air, we pedaled back to the ferry port.
Elisabeth: I can't recall specifically the meal I first cooked for or with Ryan. The memory that springs to mind is from September of our senior year at Notre Dame. In the midst of the pandemic, outdoor activities were at a premium. We –– along with Jake (now our groomsman) and his girlfriend and our lovely friend, Meg –– went on a double date to Lehman’s Orchard for an autumnal afternoon of apple-picking. I can confirm that a hand-picked organic apple can literally turn a frown upside down (we're looking at you, Jake).
After collecting our fill of Honeycrisps, Galas, and Fujis and other fresh-picked goodies, I prepared a home-baked apple pie featuring my Grammie Berner’s pie crust recipe. About halfway through baking, Grammie received an emergent FaceTime call from South Bend to coach me through rolling and latticing the crust. With her careful instruction, the dough went from crumbly to perfectly set in the pie dish. After an hour in the oven with the tantalizing aroma of cinnamon-soaked apples filling the space, the four of us feasted on the literal and figurative fruits of our labors.
Ryan: On one of the first Valentine’s Days we spent together, I was determined to replicate two important family recipes for Elisabeth: Italian wedding soup and pizza from scratch.
I hadn’t made pizza in years, and I had never attempted the wedding soup recipe on my own. I quickly realized how green a chef I was when Elisabeth had to soothe my skepticism that half a pound of spinach could adequately reduce in our soup. But it was kneading and rolling pizza dough that caught me most off-guard. Without really knowing why, I stopped Elisabeth when she pulled out a rolling pin. I coated our dough in olive oil before spreading it by hand. The moment my hands touched the dough, I fell into the most vivid sensory memory I have ever experienced. Suddenly I was eight years old, and my Grandma Rose’s worn hands were guiding me as we stood at her kitchen island. More than any dish, that memory was what I most loved sharing with Elisabeth.
Luke Giannetta
Best Man
Friend of the Couple & Italian Food Connoisseur
The first time you each cooked for the other person, what meal did you make and why?
Mary Rose McNelis
Bridesmaid
Sister of the Groom & Anthropologie Enthusiast
Ryan, some may describe your decorating style as "hobbit-hole-core," and Elisabeth, yours as "Anthropologie chic." How do the two of you plan to blend these aesthetics in your future home?
Ryan: Mary Rose is right. There is something rather "hobbit-y" about my apartment on Wilkins Avenue. At the outset of The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien describes a distinguishing feature of any hobbit hole: the mathom. Mathoms are trinkets, any object that a hobbit has no real or immediate use for, but refuses to throw away. Hobbits’ dwellings were “apt to become rather crowded with mathoms.” My apartment is no exception. A cursory exploration of my home will turn up Pittsburgh postcards from the early 1900s, Notre Dame v. Pitt football programs from seasons long past, maps of Ireland’s counties, and used movie stubs. In combining Elisbeth’s far more refined style with my own, my first priority is to begin to distinguish my most prized mathoms from what might more accurately be called clutter.
Elisabeth: I'll be quite honest, I've enjoyed the past year-and-a-half adorning my Shadyside apartment with bright florals, my collection of vibrantly colored leather-bound books, and a few subtle (or not-so-stubtle) Parisian touches without the distraction of football posters and Pittsburgh paraphernalia. The addition of Selkie, our one-year-old cat, has disrupted my space's tranquility only slightly –– and certainly less than if I found a Knute Rockne portrait hanging over my nightstand.
As we've begun to apartment-hunt for our first place together, I can't say for certain how we'll mesh our styles (maybe we'll draw straws room by room or play a life-size game of Risk across the regions of the house?). But I know we'll have a library chock-full of books, a kitchen hopefully larger than a 4' by 4' square, and a space primed for welcoming and entertaining our family and friends.
Elisabeth: As much as we love cheering on the Irish at Notre Dame Stadium, nabbing a coffee or tea at Café J, or lighting a candle at the Grotto, Ryan and I agree that our favorite spot on campus is a bit off the beaten path.
After several months of movie-watching, meandering walks, and late-night conversations in our residence hall common rooms, Ryan and I grew into a fast friendship. After dancing the night away at our Fall Semester formal on December 1st, we arrived back on campus unready to let the night end. We began another one of our meanders across campus, passing the Grotto with its candles flickering through the night air, glimpsing the Main Building's gilded dome glinting in the moonlight, and circling the icy lakes. As December 1st quietly lapsed into the 2nd, we paused at the far side of Saint Mary's Lake. The lake, teeming with ducks and swans and curtained by autumn leaves just weeks ago, had now turned to winter stillness.
We found ourselves at what is famously the most romantic corner of Notre Dame's campus –– the rec basketball courts beside Carroll Hall. Sharing a kiss and one final dance in the cold December air, snow began to fall.
Nicholas Lasecki
Groomsman
Brother of the Bride & Proud Wisconsin Badger
You met at Notre Dame (Go Badgers!). What are each of your favorite moments together on campus? And, yes, it's ok to agree that your favorite moment was when I visited Halloween weekend freshman year.
Megan McNelis
Bridesmaid
Sister of the Groom & Early 00's Rom-Com Devotee
Since you both have When Harry Met Sally as one of your "top four" movies on Letterbox'd, what are your responses to the debated question: do you think men and women can ever just be friends?
Ryan: Elisabeth and I spent the first months of our relationship devouring old movies together in our dorm rooms. Since those very early days, our shared favorite has indeed been Nora Ephron's classic romantic comedy, When Harry Met Sally. As Megan suggests, the movie revolves around Harry’s claim that it is impossible for men and women to “just” be friends – that the possibility of romantic involvement will always “get in the way.” The great wisdom of the movie –– obvious to those of us who have watched it dozens of times and now have the entire script committed to memory –– is that Harry’s rigid rule is built on a false dichotomy. Harry and Sally’s friendship is not ruined when they fall in love. Harry and Sally fall in love because they realize that they each want to spend their life with their best friend.
As Harry confesses to Sally, "when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."
Elisabeth: Easy. Draw up a play and line up for the fourth down (I'd say a quick crosser to the flat). Try to get the defense to jump offsides on the hard count for the free play or the penalty yardage. Otherwise, take the delay of game to set up the Daniel Whelan punt to pin the opponent back within their own 20-yard line.
In either case, the key is to have a real play drawn up to keep the defense on its toes.
Ryan: Punting is for cowards. Send your tight end on a stick route and put the ball in his chest. Return to the huddle with your shield or on it.
Jake Winningham
Groomsman
Friend of the Couple & Pittsburgh Native but Life-long Packers Fan
You’re up 14-10 in the fourth quarter. It’s 4th-and-5 on the opposing 48. 1:54 left on the clock, both teams only have one timeout left.
Your defense has been untrustworthy all year, but has held a usually high-scoring offense to only one touchdown in this game. Your punter is average. Your kicker is bad.
You are the 2025 Green Bay Packers.
What do you do?
Do you punt it and trust your defense to get one more stop? Or do you run a play to make sure the other team never gets the ball back? And if so, what play do you call?