Giving fresh hope to all single barhoppers in town, Suzie Lucca met her husband Chris Schenkkan during a Saturday night out on the Downtown Mall in 2006. When Suzie’s group of friends collided with Chris’s between Zocalo and Blue Light, it didn’t take the girls much urging to join the boys at Zocalo.
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Suzie Lucca and Chris Schenkkan |
At the bar Suzie, a labor and delivery nurse at Martha Jefferson, loved that Chris, an SNL Financial employee, named Dumb and Dumber as his favorite movie rather than something more pretentious from the Criterion Collection. Equally unguarded in matters of dating, Chris called Suzie the next day to invite her to a Super Bowl Sunday party. She already had plans, but undeterred, the two dated up a storm for the next six weeks.
Suzie and her sister, with whom she roomed on the Downtown Mall at the time, had St. Patrick’s Day plans to visit their brother in Boston, but on their drive through Connecticut they were in a bad car accident. “That was a galvanizing moment for our relationship,” says Chris. “Realizing how upset I was at the prospect of losing her forever, made me realize that this was special and I really was in love with her.”
For three weeks Chris drove back and forth from Charlottesville to visit Suzie in the northern hospital where she began her convalescence. “He was my cheerleader the whole time,” says Suzie. The following March the couple vacationed in Antigua and Chris proposed with his feet in the Caribbean. “He had already told every other person we knew [about the engagement],” says Suzie. No one was surprised when she called with the news.
Because two months wasn’t enough time to plan a June ceremony, Suzie and Chris pushed their outdoor wedding back until the next year. Discovering King Family Vineyards on a wine tasting, the couple committed to the location right away.
Suzie’s sister helped her plan her “intimate, amazing” wedding to Chris, and now Suzie is able to return the favor. A few months after Suzie and Chris hit it off, her sister met her current fiancé (who consequently performed the King Family Vineyards ceremony in June). Now the two sisters can conveniently share wedding florists and photographers. Even better, they own houses in the same neighborhood.
And Suzie’s not the only one who likes to share her good fortune with her family. While Suzie was calling her sister on the night she met Chris to rave about her new Zocalo acquaintance, Chris was calling his brother with the same glowing report about Suzie.
No one was surprised when Suzie called with news of her engagement. “Chris had already told every other person we knew,” she says.