Caroline Celley
and
Blake Tonn
Please join us for our wedding celebration on
Our Story
Once upon a time, a hopeful intern (Caroline) nervously walked into a Senate office, where she waited patiently for her job interview. The staff assistant in the office (me) later told our boss to hire the other guy who interviewed for the job. Luckily he didn’t listen!
It’s almost impossible that we didn’t meet before working on Capitol Hill. We both grew up in Phoenix, and, although we lived on different sides of Central, we went to the same cotillion in 6th grade. Since I was a golfer and Caroline played tennis, odds are good that we may have crossed paths at a country club at one point.
We finally met in fall of 2017, when Caroline started her new job as a staff assistant in Senator Jeff Flake’s office in Washington, DC. I was also a staff assistant at the time, and our banter between angry constituent phone calls led to us quickly becoming good friends. Despite what people may think, we were truly just friends for a very long time! In return for doing most of my work, I would take Caroline to Alta Strada, my favorite Italian restaurant, where the bartender would pour us many rounds of their famous Venice Mules. Sometimes I would cook her dinner and serve it with a bottle of Veuve. It was a good time!
We were often spotted having lunch together, taking laps around the Senate office buildings, and sitting next to each other during frequent office happy hours—shoutout to the Flake fam. She even managed to drag me to several office softball games. After spending essentially all of our time together, I asked Caroline to be my girlfriend on my roof after a few glasses of free wine at a Capitol Hill reception. We spent the next few years exploring the East Coast, eating at every DC restaurant where Caroline could make a reservation, visiting friends in Philadelphia, New York and Boston, enjoying average Virginia wine with above-average views at Charlottesville wineries, and drinking oversized margaritas at the beach in Delaware. When you add in a dozen Nats games, and a World Series win, we made some great memories!
I knew for a while that I wanted to marry Caroline. I decided to pop the question on April 17th, 2021. This was an important date because it was the only time when everyone in the family would be able to come to DC. I had the whole day scheduled, but failed to predict that Caroline’s second COVID vaccine appointment would be automatically scheduled for the day before. I tried to convince Caroline to move the appointment so we could “have a fun weekend” without making her suspicious, but she may have had some idea.
However, the proposal at the United States Botanical Garden was perfect. We came from afternoon tea at the Willard (where a very nervous Blake struggled through small talk for ninety minutes). I popped the question at a spot in the garden teeming with tulips in front of the U.S. Capitol. After her teary “yessss,” that our families watched from a vantage point behind a statue, they sprinted/crutched over to congratulate us. Caroline was completely shocked that they were all there! We are both so thankful that they were there to celebrate with us.
A few weeks later we (mostly Blake) packed up a moving pod, and we hit the road out West! We are so excited to be back in Arizona with our families, and we cannot wait for March! If you read all of this, wow! We are so excited to get married and celebrate with you all this spring.
#oneandtonn
It’s almost impossible that we didn’t meet before working on Capitol Hill. We both grew up in Phoenix, and, although we lived on different sides of Central, we went to the same cotillion in 6th grade. Since I was a golfer and Caroline played tennis, odds are good that we may have crossed paths at a country club at one point.
We finally met in fall of 2017, when Caroline started her new job as a staff assistant in Senator Jeff Flake’s office in Washington, DC. I was also a staff assistant at the time, and our banter between angry constituent phone calls led to us quickly becoming good friends. Despite what people may think, we were truly just friends for a very long time! In return for doing most of my work, I would take Caroline to Alta Strada, my favorite Italian restaurant, where the bartender would pour us many rounds of their famous Venice Mules. Sometimes I would cook her dinner and serve it with a bottle of Veuve. It was a good time!
We were often spotted having lunch together, taking laps around the Senate office buildings, and sitting next to each other during frequent office happy hours—shoutout to the Flake fam. She even managed to drag me to several office softball games. After spending essentially all of our time together, I asked Caroline to be my girlfriend on my roof after a few glasses of free wine at a Capitol Hill reception. We spent the next few years exploring the East Coast, eating at every DC restaurant where Caroline could make a reservation, visiting friends in Philadelphia, New York and Boston, enjoying average Virginia wine with above-average views at Charlottesville wineries, and drinking oversized margaritas at the beach in Delaware. When you add in a dozen Nats games, and a World Series win, we made some great memories!
I knew for a while that I wanted to marry Caroline. I decided to pop the question on April 17th, 2021. This was an important date because it was the only time when everyone in the family would be able to come to DC. I had the whole day scheduled, but failed to predict that Caroline’s second COVID vaccine appointment would be automatically scheduled for the day before. I tried to convince Caroline to move the appointment so we could “have a fun weekend” without making her suspicious, but she may have had some idea.
However, the proposal at the United States Botanical Garden was perfect. We came from afternoon tea at the Willard (where a very nervous Blake struggled through small talk for ninety minutes). I popped the question at a spot in the garden teeming with tulips in front of the U.S. Capitol. After her teary “yessss,” that our families watched from a vantage point behind a statue, they sprinted/crutched over to congratulate us. Caroline was completely shocked that they were all there! We are both so thankful that they were there to celebrate with us.
A few weeks later we (mostly Blake) packed up a moving pod, and we hit the road out West! We are so excited to be back in Arizona with our families, and we cannot wait for March! If you read all of this, wow! We are so excited to get married and celebrate with you all this spring.
#oneandtonn