Love found them: How these Tallahassee couples met in quirky ways

From chance encounters at a dog park to kindergarten dreams-come-true, three Tallahassee couples remember the charming and chance ways in which they met — and later tied the knot.

Kathryn and Kyle Frost

In October, Kyle and Kathryn Frost will celebrate their third anniversary.

But really, they’ve known each other a lifetime.

For all their years at Trinity Catholic School, the two sat next to each other because of their last names, Frost and Freesmeier.

Since their days as little ones, the pair had a bond. One day in second grade, Kyle wrote in his journal: "I love Kathryn. I want to marry Kathryn."

He remembers scribbling the note in a Harry Potter-themed journal. His mom later found the note and saved it.

After going to different schools, the two reconnected in high school and kindled a close friendship.

Kathryn’s dance recitals were at Chiles High, where he was a student. He'd watch them and they would spend time after school together.

After going their separate ways in college, Kyle moved back to Tallahassee and happened to move into a duplex near her mom’s house. The two renewed their connection, catching up on where they'd been since high school.

"All those years of sitting next to each other and getting closer, we could go years without having talked or talk like we just saw each other yesterday," he said. "Everything just fit."

In April 2016, he coaxed Kathryn into dressing up. Kyle proposed to her that spring day in the kindergarten classroom where they first met.

"It is a little unique to be able to look at each other and say, 'Hey, remember that thing we did in second grade?'" he said, like school Christmas crafts or walks to Lafayette Park.

As for the note he wrote two decades ago? Alongside an engagement photo, it's now framed in their home.

Lisa Shuman and Darryl Crowder

One summer in 1984, while studying at Florida State, Lisa Shuman took a job at a restaurant called the Pasta Bucket.

Little did she know the experience would be a wild one —  and that she'd meet her soulmate.

An eccentric eatery off Pensacola Street, the Pasta Bucket offered custom pasta dinners — delivered in a bucket. The managers, nicknamed "Stan the Man" and "Frankie," would often steal money from the cash box, Lisa said, and fall asleep on the job. At the poorly run restaurant, meatball fights weren't an unusual sight.

Lisa and Darryl Crowder, who was a deliverer, weren't paid for weeks.

Darryl told Lisa the first time they met as coworkers that he was going to marry her. Lisa scoffed, brushing him off.

"I basically told him, 'Not in this lifetime or any other lifetime,'" she said.

But working at the odd dive, the two began to form a connection.

"Part of it was that we were in this craziness, watching people steal our money — and trying to hold onto a job that made it easier to start hanging out together," Lisa said.

One day, the pair showed up for work. Frankie and Stan had disappeared. The Pasta Bucket was mysteriously no more. Lisa and Darryl were the only two employees left.

"We laugh about it," Lisa said. "It was truly the weirdest place I'd ever worked."

After graduating FSU, Darryl and Lisa married a few years later and had two kids.

The Pasta Bucket wouldn't be their last roller coaster — but may be the most bizarre one.

On a whim, the couple traveled and lived in several different places, moving to Colorado, then New Zealand and Australia. They settled back in Tallahassee seven years ago.

And still, Lisa asks — "What's our next adventure?"

Sandi and Jason Poreda

At the heart of Sandi Poreda's love life is her other love: dogs.

But that wasn't a problem for Jason Poreda.

Jason and Sandi met 11 years ago at Tom Brown Park one afternoon when they both happened to be walking their dogs, both rescues.

Jason's was Brady, a black lab. Sandi was walking her Charlie, whom she adopted from a Wakulla County animal shelter.

Leaving the park, the two noticed they drove the same car models — a dark blue Jeep Liberty.

They never exchanged contact info. But Jason tells Sandi he went back to the park every day, hoping to see her again.

Visiting her friend's workplace one day — who happened to be Jason's coworker — Jason spotted Sandi. When she left, he asked his coworker to set them up.

On their first date, while driving for dinner and a movie, they spotted a dog running near traffic. They couldn't just pass by. The couple scooped it up and took it to Northwood Animal Hospital.

It wasn't the last time they would rescue a dog together.

Later, they found a small white bulldog on the side of Interstate 10 on the way back from Universal Studios. Jason and Sandi rescued and nurtured her too, naming the 60-pound dog Ella. Sandi named her public relations firm Bulldog Strategy Group after her.

"Ella is the dog that changes everybody’s mind about pit bulls," Poreda laughed. "She's something. But she's Ella. Some dogs are like once in a lifetime dogs. Ella is one of those dogs."

A year after their fateful encounter, Jason proposed at Tom Brown.

Looking back, Sandi marvels at the "right-place-right-time" meeting.

Hers is a "dog-themed love story."

Reach Nada Hassanein at nhassanein@tallahassee.com or on Twitter @nhassanein_.