Our Story
GROOM
Chris Madaffari
BRIDE
Kaylyn Buckley
Made in the Shade
What do a theatre kid and a collegiate runner have in common?
Two friends: Pat Schellberg, a former teammate of Chris’s, and Ally Van Deuren, a former theatre major and sorority sister to Kaylyn. Chris and Kaylyn met at Ally and Pat’s wedding (well, wedding after-party to be exact) at The Shade Hotel in Redondo Beach in 2021. We were both living in New York at the time, and Kaylyn slid into Chris’s DMs to hang out once they returned to the city.
Our first date was at Saint Tropez in the West Village, and lasted 3+ hours. We discovered that we’d more or less spent the past two decades circling each other; from growing up 10 minutes apart in Connecticut, to having dozens of mutual connections spanning New York, Connecticut, and Texas. Finally connecting had been twenty years in the making!
Coast to Coast
Never ones to shy away from an adventure, we packed up our NYC lives in May 2022 to follow Chris’s job to Portland, Oregon (okay, Beaverton) where we spent three years drinking lots of coffee, running on Lief Erikson trail, accumulating too many shoes, and bringing home a sweet and crazy little puppy named Slice - named after dollar slices of pizza in New York.
Oregon brought us new friends, career growth, and plenty of adventures: learning to ski, spending time on the coast, marathon training, having Chris’s Subaru stolen (and finding it the same day), and building a life together.
Shared Travels
We also built our life - and lifelong memories - around a shared love of travel. Just three months after moving to Oregon, we packed up for a 10 day trip to Australia, putting our relationship to the test on an 18 hour flight. (All around a success!)
Over the course of the next four years, we traveled together to Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Berlin, Paris, Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Zurich, and Copenhagen. We’ve taken road trips and spent time with family in Utah, Florida, Connecticut, and Texas, and enjoyed visits to Boulder, Boise, Chapel Hill, Kansas City, and Nashville. We continue to value the chance to see the world together!
Coast to Coast Again
In February 2025, we made the move back to NYC, settling back in to life in Brooklyn and enjoying our routines visiting Prospect Park, Citi Biking, running over the bridges, revisiting our favorite restaurants, and building our East Coast home.
Chris proposed in December 2025 in Prospect Park, and we spent an amazing day getting bagels, visiting our favorite neighborhoods, and living out the ultimate New York City day before celebrating with our families that evening.
In January 2026, Chris was given a promotion that required him to primarily set up home-base back in Portland. In the spirit of adventure and travel, we decided to spend some time living a bicoastal life and making the most of the two cities that have been our centers for the past 5 years. We’ve set up a West Coast home now too - complete with dog beds and toys for Slice - where we bounce back and forth, getting the best of both worlds (and coasts).
Our relationship has been full of adventure, fun, laughter, surprises, travel, frequent-flyer points, and love. We’re excited to bring all of these qualities into our marriage, and thank you for being here to celebrate the journey with us!