VALENTE
VAN_BRUGGEN
VANDELOO
VELOCCI
VERKLEY
VIANA
VALENTE m@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2005-03-26 published
STRATTON /
VALENTE
Michael and Melanie
STRATTON are thrilled to announce the engagement
of their daughter Katie to Robert
son of Pasquale and Louise
VALENTE.
Wedding will take place July 30th, 2005.
Congratulations and best wishes from all your family and Friends in London and Ottawa.
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VAN_BRUGGEN m@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2005-03-05 published
Kristin ANDERSONS and Jason
VAN
BRUGGEN -- Match:
By Judith Tenenbaum, Saturday, March 5, 2005 - Page M6
On January 22 in Halifax, 93-year-old convalescing Zizi
ANDERSONS
dressed up, poured herself champagne and listened on the telephone
to her granddaughter's nuptials in Toronto. Only months before,
Kristin ANDERSONS and Jason
VAN
BRUGGEN had been planning a summer
wedding, but brushes with death in their respective families
and news of an impending birth prompted them to redefine their
priorities and pull together a ceremony in a matter of weeks.
"All of these events occurring at the same time brought everything
into sharp focus," Mr.
VAN
BRUGGEN says.
Products of preppy Havergal and Upper Canada Colleges respectively,
both say their families were paramount in shaping their lives.
"We had incredible opportunities growing up, family vacations
in Europe, at resorts and I practically grew up on the lake,"
Ms. ANDERSONS says.
Although a reluctant Mr.
VAN
BRUGGEN moved at the age of 15 with
his family to the Netherlands for the rest of his high-school
career, he acknowledges today that his parents made the decision
with the best of intentions. "I improved my Dutch and French,
but was still able to come back here in the summer to go to camp
and now understand what my parents were trying to do and how
it benefited me.... They gave me lots of opportunity and I embraced
every aspect of the outdoor lifestyle."
The couple, now both 32, had instant chemistry when they met
in December of 2002 at a party thrown by a mutual friend. They
found that they share an inherent love of the outdoors -- Mr.
VAN
BRUGGEN is an avid canoeist, mountain climber and competitive
rugby player while Ms.
ANDERSONS danced, competed in tennis,
skiing and volleyball and rowed crew for Havergal and the Argonaut
Rowing Club.
Each had also recently returned to Toronto after spending years
abroad. Mr.
VAN
BRUGGEN, a graduate of Queen's University in
Kingston, was making a foray into filmmaking after travelling
and working in international development in Africa. Ms.
ANDERSONS,
meanwhile, had studied film at the University of California at
Los Angeles and attended the L.A. Film School on a scholarship.
But she says, "My family and Friends were here. I'd been away
a long time and my agenda was to see if I could move home."
By March of 2003, encouraged by her new flame, she did, and decided
to pursue a master's degree here in her original discipline,
clinical psychology.
The romance didn't diminish Mr.
VAN
BRUGGEN's wanderlust, but
his travels brought their relationship into focus.
He spent the winter of 2003 filming in South America, jaunted
home and was off again to India last summer. "It put a strain
on the relationship," he admits. The realization that he had
travelled to 75 countries gave him pause to reflect and confirm
Irish author George Moore's dictum, "A man travels the world
over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it."
When he returned, the couple purchased a home in Riverdale and
Mr. VAN
BRUGGEN proposed between touchdowns during Monday Night
Football. "It was strategic," Ms.
ANDERSONS jokes, "Jason now
has an excuse to watch every week."
Plans for a wedding this summer by her parents' cottage were
foiled on every front. They had a church but no firm date and
nearby reception venues were all booked. There was just one sure
thing, Ms.
ANDERSONS says. "I found my wedding dress, the only
thing that solidified."
In November, the pair was overjoyed to find that Ms.
ANDERSONS
was unexpectedly pregnant. "I never thought it would be that
important to be married before we had a child, since we were
spending the rest of our lives together," she says pensively.
"If it were somebody else, it would not phase me for a second,
but I realized how important it actually was to me."
Ms. ANDERSONS quickly shared her joy with her mother, but it
was tempered by news that Grandmother Zizi in Halifax needed
an emergency operation.
"My mother was ecstatic," she says, "but our exciting news was
soon accompanied by devastating news -- Jason's father had a
heart attack days later." Relishing the prospect of a grandchild,
he survived his near-fatal condition and subsequent surgery.
The couple decided that now was the time to act, Mr.
VAN
BRUGGEN
says. "We said, 'Let's get married for ourselves, our unborn
child, and the sake of our families, with Kristin's grandmother
mentally well enough to understand.' "
Within weeks, she and her mother whipped up a wedding, Ms.
ANDERSONS
says. "Doors just opened, [the University of Toronto's] Trinity
chapel was available, Massey College for a reception across the
street, the trumpet soloist, the stringed quartet and the choir
were free."
On the blizzardy evening of January 22, Reverend John
BEACH officiated
in a luminescent Trinity College Chapel as celebrants held lit
candles. Teary emotions peaked during the processional as the
bridegroom's resolute father walked up the aisle with his wife,
followed by the bride's maternal grandmother and father, and
then Ms. ANDERSONS with her brother Steve. "I'll always remember
his squeeze before he turned me over to my parents," the new
Mrs. VAN
BRUGGEN says.
Her husband says he hopes to be able to impart the same strong
sense of family to his own children. "Goals change when you start
conceiving of yourself as a family," he says, adding that his
travels affected his social awareness and religious and cultural
tolerance. "I'd love to educate my children by exposing them
to the exotic, but within the parameters of keeping them safe."
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VANDELOO m@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2005-06-11 published
VANDELOO,
Bill and Riet - 60th Wedding Anniversary
Come help us celebrate the 60th Anniversary of Bill and Riet
VANDELOO
Open House Bryanston Community Centre, June 26, 2005 1-4pm
Best Wishes Only.
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VELOCCI m@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2005-06-11 published
Rupa AGGARWAL and Mario
VELOCCI
By Judith TENENBAUM,
Saturday,
June 11, 2005, Page M6
When
Mario
Giulio
VELOCCI encountered a damsel in distress, his
chivalry included the bonus of a business opportunity.
It was 1: 30 a.m., and Rupa
AGGARWAL was standing on Yonge Street
crying, having just had an argument with her boyfriend at the time.
Mr. VELOCCI tapped her on the shoulder and handed her his card.
"You are much too pretty to be crying," he said, "You should
be modelling because you are beautiful."
Ms. AGGARWAL, a University of Western Ontario graduate who was
then studying occupational therapy, contemplated whether his
approach was professional or propositional. "I sat on his card
about three months, did some research and found out he was legitimate,"
she says.
During his student years, an enterprising Mr.
VELOCCI had modelled
and worked as a wardrobe stylist to put himself through York
University and a master's program at the University of Toronto.
He had planned to become a teacher, but jobs were scarce when
he graduated in 1997, so he launched his own niche business,
VELOCCI
Model and
Talent
Management. "Most of my Friends were
of ethnic origin and couldn't find representation as models or
actors," he says, recalling how he promoted their talent to clients.
Consequently, he encouraged Ms.
AGGARWAL's part-time modelling
career, and over the next four years they partied at glamorous
industry events as Friends, and set each other up on dates. But
Friends joked that they should consider going out themselves.
Love comes when you are not looking, and one evening over an
innocuous dinner the pair wondered what it would be like if they
married. The genie was out of the bottle, and Ms.
AGGARWAL returned
home that evening "feeling weird about Mario."
After another awkward movie evening, she showed up at his office
and said, "I need to talk." When she confided her feelings for
Mr. VELOCCI, he in shock jettisoned what he was eating. Discombobulated,
he waited 2½ months before inviting her out to chat -- and confess
his adulation.
"Our relationship was gradual, because we were making the transition
from Friendship to relationship, and both took it slowly for
the first year," she remembers with a laugh. "We didn't know
exactly how to proceed.
"It's a little strange because all of a sudden you're kissing your best friend."
Cultural differences posed a further challenge. She was of East
Indian Hindu heritage and he of Italian Catholic, but obstacles
paled next to the possibilities. Her parents, advocates of arranged
marriage, were reluctant to accept Mr.
VELOCCI as a serious suitor
as a stream of eligible Hindu candidates were in pursuit. Finally,
he implored, "Please slow down. We're in a relationship -- no
more prospective suitors!"
At her first luncheon with his family, gnocchi with meatballs
was on the menu. At the time, Ms.
AGGARWAL was a vegan (not convinced
by dogma, but by dyspepsia from a downtown eatery). "I was horrified,
not being able to eat at a family function, thinking what am I going to do?"
Happily, now all foods beckon to her -- by choice, not compromise, she insists.
On their second dating anniversary, his gift was a diamond pendant.
Decrying her mother's dubious comment -- "It's a far reach from
the neck to the ring [finger]" -- Ms.
AGGARWAL insisted that
Mr. VELOCCI would make his move when he was ready.
When she gave him The Idiot's Guide to Hinduism on another occasion,
he countered with a promise of a book on Catholicism when he
proposed. And after four years of dating, one evening in June,
2004, on the night before her 29th birthday, he offered a card,
the book and the ring on bended knee.
"She burst out crying, and all emotional, gave me this hug, didn't
even see the ring. And I asked, 'Does that mean you are going
to marry me?' " he recalls.
The couple satisfied their disparate family cultures with a ceremony
for each. On May 14 at Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Church, Rev.
Thomas MOORE wed the pair in a Catholic ceremony. One hundred
and sixty attendees, mainly from Mr.
VELOCCI's side, were given
gifts purchased by the bride in India, and she conversed in limited
Italian at their Renaissance Parque Dining, Banquet and Convention
Centre reception in Concord.
A Hindu ceremony and reception was held on May 22 at the Greek
Canadian Community Centre in London, Ontario, where Pandit Rajinder
MOHLA officiated before 250 guests, largely from the bride's
side. The couple in Hindu garb distributed Italian bomboniere.
The newlyweds' careers now largely focus on their modelling and
fashion-related businesses, including television appearances.
Ms. AGGARWAL appears on Shop Toronto as an on-air reporter and
Mr. VELOCCI, 32, can be seen as a fashion consultant on Toronto
Living and Style by Jury. "We complement each other," he says,
"I am the schmoozer and can work a room in less than an hour.
Rupa gets into intellectual discourse.
"She is social. My job is to maximize contacts."
VELOCCI m@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2005-06-11 published
VELOCCI,
Betty and Fats - 60th Wedding Anniversary
June 9, 2005
Love and best wishes from your family.
P.S. Happy 90th Birthday Grandpa (June 19)
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VERKLEY m@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2005-06-18 published
VERKLEY,
John and Miep - 50 Years!
Congratulations
Open House At Pony Brook Farm, 9134 Gordon Road, Thedford
June 26th 2005, 2-4pm
Best Wishes Only
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VIANA m@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2005-03-12 published
REGIER /
VIANA
Muitassãoasnossas graças.
Maureen REGIER, daughter of Paul and Katharine, and Doctor Paulo
VIANA are celebrating the first anniversary of their engagement.
With pleasure they announce their upcoming wedding in July 2005.
Congratulations from your families, especially Max and Pita.
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