I Do!: Alexandra Checkers & Michael Lynch, of Massapequa Park

Alexandra Checkers was just 14, she said, when she developed a “big crush” on Farmingdale High School classmate Michael Lynch, then 15. “I would follow him around the halls” and volunteer to “help him with his math homework,” she said with a laugh.

But Lynch said he wasn’t smitten yet. “She was really good in math, and I needed help in math,” he said. “But then we started hanging out, and I thought she’s pretty cool and more than just a big brain.”

Lynch, now 28 and a NYPD officer, and Checkers, now 26 and a social worker, started dating a year later. By the time Checkers was enrolled in St. John’s University in Queens, and Lynch was accepted to Farmingdale State College in Farmingdale, they knew wedding bells were in their future.

In August 2020, the couple moved in together. Engagement followed on Nov. 4, 2023, at Del Vino Vineyard in Northport.

Lynch arranged for the vineyard’s house photographer to capture the moment of the proposal. The photographer “took a few pictures of other couples and of us and then turned away and that was when I dropped to a knee,” he recalled. “The photographer captured it all.”

Checkers was surprised but elated as Lynch asked her to marry him. “I said, ‘yes,’ and cried a little,” she said.

The couple married on Oct. 3 at Stonebridge Country Club in Smithtown, with 10 bridesmaids, nine groomsmen and 175 guests.

The highlight of their wedding: their first dance together, which was “special and fun,” Lynch said. Also, having a live wedding painter at the event who captured their first kiss at the altar in realtime, Checkers said. At their after-party, cigar rollers crafted handmade cigars for guests to enjoy.