I Do!: Katie VanVort & Brian Kolb, of Bellerose

Katie VanVort had a reputation for one-and-done dates. After dinner, she’d go home and tell her grandmother: “Not the one.”

But in July 2018, she came home from a first date breathless, excited and announcing she was heading right back out.

VanVort grabbed her pool cue, and she and Brian Kolb, an FDNY firefighter she met on Tinder, drove to a Bayside hall where Kolb won game after game. By then, she had decided she wasn’t letting this one go.

The relationship grew quickly, with country concerts and spontaneous trips. 

Sundays were spent with Kolb’s softball team, which VanVort said felt like a “family league,” complete with wives, kids and, eventually, the couple’s dog, Pip.

In 2020, VanVort moved in with Kolb and his parents during the COVID-19 pandemic to protect her grandmother, who had undergone a lung transplant. When her grandmother passed away later that year, she said Kolb’s support carried her through.

Kolb proposed on Aug. 14, 2022, after his softball championship game in Queens. A friend with TV equipment captured the moment on video.

“She turned to kiss me as I started going down on one knee,” Kolb recalled.

The couple married Jan. 19 at The Fox Hollow in Woodbury. They later realized the date fell on the anniversary of VanVort’s grandfather’s death.

VanVort felt it was a sign from her grandmother, whose presence seemed tied to the day from the start. Soon after the ceremony, snow began to fall, giving her the winter backdrop she had hoped for in her wedding photos.

The wedding featured an Irish handfasting, VanVort’s sister as the flower girl and a lively dance floor where both bride and groom were tossed in the air.