Nicole Daisy Schwartzberg and Eugene Toye's first date was a success by all accounts—which is remarkable, given that it had all the makings of a rom-com disaster.
When Daisy (she goes by her middle name), a makeup artist who has counted Martha among her clients for nearly a decade, invited Eugene, a hairstylist, out for a drink, he was eager to accept. She had just started at New York City's Rita Hazan salon, where Eugene works, and he was immediately taken with his new coworker's outsize personality. "She can make friends with a lamppost," he says. He expected the evening to be fun, and maybe a little bit awkward—it was a first date, after all. But one thing the self-professed introvert didn't expect was an entourage.
"While I'm in the cab on the way to the bar, she texts me, 'I hope you don't mind, but my parents are here, too. And my friend. And my parents' friends,'" he remembers—the horror still fresh. "It was like she had set a booby trap!"
Luckily, Eugene didn't fall into a trap; he fell in love—with Daisy, and with the group of dear friends and family that surround her on any given day. Their quadruple date that night went so well, in fact, that even though Daisy offered him an escape after a few drinks, he surprised himself and declined. He was having too much fun.
Daisy fell for Eugene just as easily and quickly. "We spent hours and hours on the phone. It was something I was so not used to. It's such a texting world! Eugene is old-fashioned in that way, and I love it," she says. "He's just super-warm and solid—and very easy to look at." Eugene returns the compliment. "She looks best without a smear of makeup on," he says. "Daisy doesn't need any of that."
Seventeen months after they started dating, Eugene proposed with a rose-gold-and-diamond ring (he now wears a matching rose-gold band), and just four months later, on November 27, 2016, (over Thanksgiving weekend) they exchanged vows at their friend Gabby Karan de Felice's downtown New York City restaurant, Tutto Il Giorno. A cocktail reception—or, as Daisy describes it, "one big dance party"—with about 100 friends and family followed the ceremony. Naturally, Eugene had originally hoped for a shorter guest list. "It was so overwhelming. Me, shy, reserved, with all these people there," he recalls. But he adds, "I felt all the love." As for Daisy's impression of the day? "I regret not inviting more people!"
