Boy meets girl. Girl gives boy her business card. Boy promptly loses said card. Girl attempts to email boy, but girl’s note is never received.

The end? Not so fast.

This is the tale of Darian Schlossberg and Richard Jennings, the story of a couple “meant to be,” for after several months of assuming all hope was lost in ever meeting again, fate thankfully took its course. Buried in the depths of his briefcase, Richard finally located Darian’s business card. He wasted no time in calling her, and the pair finally reunited on a long-awaited first date. Darian and Richard have been inseparable ever since, adding new chapters to their story with no ending in sight.

After getting engaged on a private island off the coast of Connecticut, Darian and Richard began thinking about where to hold their wedding. As Angelenos, the couple envisioned a West Coast wedding, but since Darian’s parents were New Yorkers, the Schlossbergs had other ideas about where the wedding should be held. After the couple settled on an April date in New York, Darian’s parents realized that throwing their daughter the wedding of her dreams—in the city where she fell in love—was what they wanted, too. The wedding was moved to the luxurious Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills, and their favorite date in May was quickly secured.

Much of the draw of this particular hotel was the age-old location, location, location. As Darian explains, “Our wedding was a destination wedding for approximately 85 percent of the wedding, so we wanted our guests to be centrally located and to be able to experience all L.A. has to offer.” The other deciding factor was its supreme level of elegance. Starting with the hotel’s beautiful foundation, the couple’s vendors elevated it further to achieve the lush and graceful look the couple desired for the garden ceremony. “I was literally brought to tears when I first saw it all completed,” recalls the bride. From the crystal chandelier hung above a wrought-iron gate covered in roses, hydrangea and gardenia blooms, to the aisle lined with planter boxes of green apples, lush moss and white calla lilies, the result was “simply magical.”

Even more moving than the setting was the miraculous story behind the presence of Darian’s parents. Four months earlier, while they were attending the wedding of Darian’s cousin in L.A., the Schlossbergs were hit by a car as they crossed the street. Darian’s mother broke her ankle in three different places, and despite being told she might not be able to escort her daughter down the aisle, she did so triumphantly. “With sheer perseverance and many hours of physical therapy, my beautiful mother walked down [the aisle] on her own two feet. It was a tearful moment for all,” remembers Darian.

With many reasons to celebrate, guests were energized for the ballroom reception, a resplendent continuation of the classic color palette introduced at the ceremony—shades of white and green—accented by silver. Arrangements of roses, hydrangea, lilies of the valley and French tulips were displayed high atop silver candelabras and in coordinating silver julep cups surrounding their bases. Every inch of the couple’s enormous, five-tiered wedding cake was covered in white sugar roses as it rested on a thick carpet of moss, hydrangea and rose petals.

After the cake-cutting and an already nonstop night of dancing, a Spanish guitarist kept the floor packed with his Gipsy Kings-like music—the perfect vibe for an international crowd. “We had a wonderful mix of people from 10 countries and 14 states at our wedding,” says the couple. “All of these people made the most special evening ever. The love and energy in the room was unbelievable.” Even with a courtship that almost wasn’t (and a wedding that was sent for a loop), in the end, destiny had its way of making everything work out exactly as planned.