Love Story: Lisa and Anthony Noto of Ronkonkoma

Lisa Noto of Ronkonkoma tells how her future husband, Anthony, walked right into her life at a cookware house party.

On the evening of March 9, 2007, I was demonstrating a Pampered Chef show at a home in East Patchogue. As I started cleaning up and taking customer orders, in walked a cute guy. I made a quip about how I thought the ladies hired a stripper.

The hostess started laughing and said, "No, that's my brother, Tony! He just moved back from Myrtle Beach two days ago because he's going through a divorce. He's just here to say 'Hi' to everyone because we haven't seen him in so long." My ears perked up as I was also going through a divorce.

I thought . . . what are the chances I could get this guy interested before I leave this house tonight? Well, I started nervously talking to him and cracked a few jokes while his family and his sister's friends looked on. They were getting a kick out of it. Although it was fun flirting, I left a little bummed because he didn't ask for my number.

Much to my surprise, Tony got my phone number from his sister and contacted me the next day, and we decided to meet for lunch a few days later. As we were getting to know each other we uncovered many coincidences.

Tony and I had attended John F. Kennedy Elementary school in East Islip and lived about a half-mile from each other but had never met as we are three years apart in age. We each had married the same year and bought our first homes in the same town in the same year.

And almost three years earlier, when my mother was hospitalized at St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center in Smithtown with terminal cancer, Tony was also a patient there, recovering from a serious lung operation. And I had been living within blocks of his parents and his other sister and her family. It was almost as if our paths kept crossing until the time was right!

I knew after just one date I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. He knew after a month, and on Mother's Day he asked me to marry him. On Sept. 5, 2008, Tony married me, accepting with love my two children and my dad, who lives with us.

Tony is a sales manager with Baron Honda in Patchogue. So the next time you're invited to a home party and you happen to be single, think about the possibilities of coming home with more than just the products you ordered!