Tavola cook Ian Redshaw fell in love with Allie McGrath when they were both students at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. The pair dated for six years, and last spring Ian decided it was time to propose. When asked why, he said simply, “She’s my everything.” And to make that fact perfectly clear to Allie, Ian hatched a plot straight out of a Disney romance.
Allie: “During the Dreams Come True Parade at Walt Disney World, Ian made arrangements to stop the parade where we were standing so he could get down on one knee and ask, ‘Will you make all of my dreams come true and marry me?’ The backdrop to his proposal was Cinderella’s castle.”
Ian: “With tears of happiness rolling down her face, Allie said, ‘Yes, I will marry you!’ and all of the parade’s spectators and its favorite characters applauded and congratulated us.”
Allie: “And my family, who is very important to me, was there too, because Ian had planned his proposal to happen during a vacation that included them. They were accomplices in the whole thing.”
Following Ian’s fairy tale proposal, the couple chose the summer solstice—June 21, 2014—for a wedding ceremony and reception at the historic Obici House on the banks of the James River in Suffolk, Virginia. Food, of course, was a priority for the two cooks who, according to Ian, “are like a nice steak and a super Tuscan: Individually, we’re wonderful, but together we’re a dynamite combination.”