I Do!: Erin McAnaney and Tim Trimarchi

Erin McAnaney and Tim Trimarchi’s first meeting didn’t go exactly as planned — but they managed to find the humor in it anyway.

After talking online, Trimarchi, 32, of Hauppauge, arranged to meet McAnaney, 29, outside her Rockville Centre apartment just before Thanksgiving 2017.

“We go in for the hug and I go to do the cheek kiss,” Trimarchi said, describing their greeting. “And she kind of turned her head and I got a face full of hair.”

McAnaney, who works in banking and had recently moved to Long Island from Connecticut, took it in stride. “It was funny,” she said.

Despite the awkward start, the two went on to have a get-acquainted dinner of tacos and margaritas. “I did get a kiss on the cheek goodbye,” Trimarchi said.

For his proposal, Trimarchi, who owns a landscape design company, had arranged for a private boat cruise around upstate Lake George, where the extended McAnaney family takes their annual summer vacations. McAnaney thought the plan was for the whole family to have dinner and then go on the cruise.

But as dinner ended, the excuses started for why other family members couldn’t join in — a sore back, a toddler’s bedtime. “Except Erin’s dad — he said, ‘I’ll go, I’ll go,’  ” Trimarchi recalled. “I’m thinking, ‘Did no one tell this man the plan? What’s going on here?’  ”

Ultimately, Dad bowed out and the pair headed off. As sunset approached on July 24, 2022, they stopped at an island named, appropriately, Long Island. “That was not planned,” Trimarchi said.

McAnaney said yes, and on Oct. 21, 2023, they celebrated their wedding with 140 guests. The reception was held at The Royalton on the Greens in Melville.

“It was really just a great day,” McAnaney said. Trimarchi added, “Everyone was dancing and having fun. . . . It was the best night of our lives.”