The Tamesis
The love story of event planner Amanda Dubin and ABC News reporter Will Reeves began online—where neither of them expected to meet their forever love. They met in late summer 2022, but life logistics and scheduling conflicts meant they couldn’t meet in person right away. “One of us got COVID, the other had to travel, etc.,” explains Amanda, who runs luxury event planning company Victoria Dubin Events with her mother.
After canceling on each other a few times, they finally settled on a Friday in the fall — but on that Wednesday, Will got a call from work instructing him to fly to England to cover the death of Queen Elizabeth II — so he had to cancel. again.
After arriving in London, Will went directly to the gates of Buckingham Palace to begin reporting. After returning to the United States, Amanda saw the news and sent Will a text message to express her condolences, but she didn’t fully realize that Will was a TV reporter working in the United Kingdom and actually had no relationship with the Queen.
Due to time differences and Will’s long assignment, he missed her text messages and didn’t respond for more than a week. However, once he came up for breath and realized his faux pas, he quickly re-engaged, insisting that he didn’t mean to ghost her and explaining that he hoped she would give him another chance on a date when he eventually returned to New York. Happily, Amanda agreed to Will’s invitation to have coffee in Greenwich Village.
They eventually met at Banter on Sullivan Street. “We both knew immediately there was a connection,” Will said. “There’s even potential to do big things.” Soon, they were hanging out together almost every night.
They got engaged on November 8, 2024. “We had been living together for a year at that point and getting engaged was more a matter of when than if,” Amanda said.
Last summer, Amanda began casually familiarizing herself with engagement rings so she could make a proposal to Will when the time came. One day she casually mentioned seeing perfect old mining pads in a jewelry store, just to give Will an idea. He immediately called the jeweler and told him he would design the ring the next day.
A few months later, in early November, Will arranged the proposal with Amanda’s mother and his adoptive parents, Ralph and Ann Pucci, at Ralph Pucci International, Ralph’s design gallery in the Flatiron District. (Reeves’ parents are the late actor Christopher Reeve, best known for his role in supermanand Dana Reeve. ) He organized flowers, candles, a photographer and even a harpist.
Will concocts a fake event to get Amanda there. The two were scheduled to attend a friend’s rehearsal dinner and wedding. Before they leave, Will asks Ralph to tell Amanda that it is important for them to attend the gallery event before they leave town. This ensured Amanda would be dressed up for a night out.
