On Jan. 7, three days before they were to celebrate their wedding in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Kendyl Mara Klein and Benjamin Peter DiGiulio received a text alert.
“It said there was a fire in the Palisades and to evacuate now,” Ms. Klein said. “I said to Ben, ‘That’s where our venue is.’ We were watching and wondering, ‘How big is this fire going to get?’” They went to bed hopeful things might be better by morning.
Instead, they were far worse.
They turned on the news to see a reporter in front of their venue, the Bel-Air Bay Club. It remains standing, but the venue was unable to host their celebration on Jan. 10. “They said we either had to change the date or get a full refund,” Ms. Klein said. “We got a full refund the same day.”
The couple, who live in New Jersey, needed to find a new venue in the midst of this growing tragedy, knowing still how fortunate they were. Rescheduling was not an option, they said. Ms. Klein’s two older sisters and a high school friend swooped in to help.
The women called 15 venues in the Los Angeles area all of which were open to assisting them. Then they had one last idea. Should they call the Ritz just for fun, someone asked in the group text. “It wasn’t on our original list because of cost,” Ms. Klein said.
When they called the Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey, Jessica Lange, a senior sales manager, asked, “‘What was your refund?’” Ms. Lockwood said. When she told them, Ms. Lange said, “That’s all you’ll pay.’”
So two days before their wedding, the couple had not just a new venue, but one far more grand than they had imagined.
Mr. DiGiulio and Ms. Klein met in October 2019 while both were working at Barstool Sports in New York City — he as a brand manager and she as a marketing manager. Ms. Klein sat across from Mr. DiGiulio’s friend, Nick Mulcahy. “‘Who is this beautiful girl?’” Mr. DiGiulio recalled wondering.
“He was talking about U.C.L.A. and I was like, ‘I used to live in Brentwood,’” said Ms. Klein, who grew up in Northridge, Calif. Mr. DiGiulio, then 24, might have been flirting, but Ms. Klein, then 28, was not. “It was not love at first sight for me,” she said. Among her concerns: his age and the fact that he was her colleague.
Not that Mr. DiGiulio thought he had a chance: “I thought she was out of my league,” he said. So instead he decided, “I’m just going to try to be friends with her.”
Mr. DiGiulio was soon stopping by every day to see his buddy — but “I wasn’t really going to see Nick,” he admitted. “I was going to see my friend Kendyl. I was playing the long game.”
The two spent a lot of time talking. “We were building a solid friendship on shared values,” Ms. Klein said.
They became even closer that December at the Barstool holiday party. “That was the time I was really into the idea that I wanted to date Kendyl,” he said. “I don’t want to say I followed her around like a puppy dog, but …”
“My boss was like, ‘You and Ben?’ and I was like, ‘Absolutely not,’” Ms. Klein said. “But after the party, I was like, ‘Why do I feel like I want to kiss Ben?’” The two began texting after that party — a lot. And on New Year’s Eve, Mr. DiGiulio surprised Ms. Klein with a phone call at 9:45 p.m.
“I always call the people I care about on New Year’s Eve,” said Mr. DiGiulio, who grew up in Revere, Mass. “And she fell into that category.”
“He was in Revere and I was in New York,” she said. “People were like, ‘Who was that?’ I was like, ‘This guy from work.’ I was shocked. I was like, ‘I need to figure this out.’”
Just a little over a month later, in February 2020, Ms. Klein discovered she was locked out of her apartment in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. Surprising even herself, she called Mr. DiGiulio and went to stay at his place in Hoboken, N.J., rather than calling a friend nearby. The sleepover, however, was platonic.
But, she said, “he really wanted to show me Hoboken the right way” — which became the perfect excuse to ask her on a first date. In early March, the two had dinner at Leo’s Grandevous, an Italian restaurant in Hoboken. (The restaurant has since become their regular spot, Ms. Klein said.)
About a week later, as Covid became a global crisis, Ms. Klein moved in with Mr. DiGiulio, assuming, like much of the world, it would be for just two weeks. Two weeks became more than two months.
At the beginning of May, they flew out to visit Ms. Klein’s family in Northridge. Her family was in the process of selling her childhood home. They had already moved out, leaving it open for Ms. Klein and Mr. DiGiulio to move in. The couple stayed there for another two months.
When Mr. DiGiulio traveled to Revere, and she stayed in California for another month, “I was a wreck driving him to the airport after four months living together,” she said.
She realized then, “I can’t live without him.”
In late January 2021, Ms. Klein moved into a one-bedroom rental in Hoboken. And about a year and a half later, she bought a condo, also in Hoboken, where both she and Mr. DiGiulio currently live.
One morning, in the spring of 2023, Mr. DiGiulio woke up knowing he was ready to propose. “I texted a friend who had recently gotten married and asked, ‘How do you know?’ and he said, ‘You just know. And if you don’t lock this down with Kendyl you’re an idiot.’”
He called his family. He texted her sisters. He even asked her parents and her grandmother for their blessing. A plan was soon hatched. The family would get together for a supposed birthday celebration for her father who had turned 70 just a few months before.
In August 2023, under the guise of taking family photos, they all gathered on the beach in Oxnard, Calif. There was one hitch.
“We have a family rule: You can’t be in family photos unless you’re engaged or married,” Ms. Klein said. So, as they gathered for photos, the plan was for one of Ms. Klein’s siblings to tell Mr. DiGiulio he couldn’t be in the photo. That was the cue for him to propose and the photographer to shoot.
But Ms. Klein fumbled the play by enforcing the rule before her siblings could.
“I messed it up and whispered to Ben, ‘You can’t be in the photo’ and he was like, ‘Can you come here one sec?’ and he proposed,” Ms. Klein said. “It was pure happiness and surprise.” (And the photographer still got the shots.)
Mr. DiGiulio, 29, is now a senior brand manager at Barstool Sports. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University in history and political science.
Ms. Klein, 32, was laid off from Barstool in August 2023. She has a bachelor’s degree in media studies from Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif.
The two were legally married on Oct. 4, 2024 at Revere City Hall by the city clerk, Ashley Melnik. The couple chose to hold the “pre-wedding” so Mr. DiGiulio’s 94-year-old grandfather, who would not be able to travel to California in January, could attend.
The decision became even more meaningful because on Dec. 21, Mr. DiGiulio’s father, Peter Vincent DiGiulio, died unexpectedly in his sleep at age 72. “But he saw our legal marriage, which he said was ‘the happiest day of his life,’” Mr. DiGiulio said.
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On Jan. 10, at the Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey, the couple held an interfaith celebration, including a ceremony led by Ms. Klein’s brother-in-law, Andrew Miller. (Ms. Klein is Jewish and Mr. DiGiulio is Catholic.) In attendance were 150 guests. About 50 had to cancel because they had evacuated their homes or had concerns about traveling to Los Angeles.
“In the elevator, people would say, ‘You’re dressed nice. I hope you have something to celebrate,’” Mr. DiGiulio said. “We were all walking on eggshells a bit.”
“Everyone showed up with so much love to give and so much celebrating to do,” Ms. Klein said.
Just three weeks earlier, the two said, neither of them could have imagined a time when they could ever feel as happy as they did that night.
“We were glad we were able to have a lot of joy during a dark time,” Ms. Klein said.
On This Day
When Jan. 10, 2025
Where The Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey, Calif.
Without a Hitch “We didn’t shovel out thousands of dollars to save the day,” Ms. Klein said. “The Ritz saved the day, recreating our whole original menu, going above and beyond to make our wedding perfect. This venue will forever hold a special place in our hearts.”
Every one of the couple’s other original vendors, including With Love by Katie, With Love Floral Co, DJ Bryan Neville, the Blitz Nation team and Haines Tribe Media stuck with the couple despite the fires. “All of the vendors were just like, ‘Tell us where to be,’” Ms. Klein said. “We’re so thankful for their hard work and flexibility.”
Cultural Mash-up While everyone was doing the hora, the D.J. switched from “Hava Nagila” to “Lazy Mary (Luna Mezza Mare)” by Lou Monte, as a nod to the groom’s Italian heritage, as the dancing continued.
The Kids Are All Right At one point, Mr. DiGiulio said, “The kids took over the dance floor. Just seeing the next generation, it felt like it’s all going to be all right.” The song? Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club.”
Still the Life of the Party Throughout his life, at every event or party, Mr. DiGiulio said, “My dad would do this party trick. Light a match and eat it. Light a napkin and eat it. Light a matchbook and eat it.” At the reception, his cousin Kathryn Cronin, “stepped up and did the trick at just the right moment.”