She didn't have to look any further than his username to know he was worth knowing.

A shared love of Chevy Chase, after all, was not a bad place to begin a relationship — and given that "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" was her all-time favorite film, it's no surprise that someone going by Dr. Griswold would catch her eye.

Still, online dating was new and nerve-wracking. And the day they met in person, both had escape plans to use if necessary — never anticipating that they'd instead spend eight hours with someone who never seemed like a stranger.

"We just enjoyed each other's company so much, we were instant best friends," she says.

For Ciara Zimmer and Clark Chaney, that easy connection they formed in June 2015 was the start of something much better than either had hoped. The rightness they felt together resulted in a perfect first date, which they began at Kansas City’s PorchFest music festival. After hanging out there with a couple of Clark’s college friends, they went to dinner and then to the Westport Beer Festival. And when they finally went their separate ways that night, it seemed they’d known each other much more than just a day.

As they got to know each other better in the weeks that followed, their favorable impressions continued to grow. They also saw how much they shared in common — from a good work ethic to a goofy sense of humor that made it easy to have fun even in a setting as mundane as a grocery store. 

They also discovered a shared love for family and experienced how well they meshed with each other’s families, which seemed a positive sign that their relationship could last for the long haul.

But first, of course, it would have to be an official relationship. Ciara opted to pull the trigger on this on August 22, 2015 — posing the question of exactly where they stood with each other before heading out to Kansas City’s Bacon-Fest.



“I don’t take just anyone to Bacon-Fest,” she laughs. “If you’re going to watch me eat a pound of bacon, we have to be something serious.”

ciara + Clark

- best friends from the very beginning -

By Erin Wisdom-Watson

"If you're going to watch me eat a pound of bacon,
we have to be something serious."

Fortunately, confirming his feelings for her was an easy choice for Clark, and they were able to enjoy the bacon in brand-new couplehood. It was also easy for them to make shared plans for several travel opportunities that arose around that time, never worrying about a potential breakup when they booked flights and hotels months ahead of time for trips to places like Santa Fe, Napa, Sonoma and Cancun.

As an added bonus, “Everything about those trips was so much more fun than we thought it would be, because we were doing it together,” Clark says.

About a year after they met, they began discussing marriage as a certain part of their future. But each of them had a big purchase to make first: For Ciara, a house — in keeping with the goal she’d long had for herself to be a homeowner before getting married. And for Clark, a ring — in the diamond-solitaire style that was also on Ciara’s wishlist.

Despite all the hours he spent searching for just the right stone, she had no idea in the spring of 2017 that a proposal was right around the corner. She wasn’t suspicious even when the week arrived that he whisked her away on a surprise birthday trip to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, with an engagement ring tucked away in his luggage.

In order to ensure she’d take time off from work, Clark scheduled the trip for when Ciara was expecting a visit from her mom and some friends. But not only did her visitors not show — they avoided any communication with her, not wanting to give away the surprise they knew she had coming.

Ciara wondered what she’d done to make them all mad enough to ignore her, but she soon had a distraction in the form of restaurants, site-seeing and a nice cabin outside of Eureka Springs. And on her birthday — April 22 — she and Clark hiked through a cave and went wine-tasting before going to the well-known attraction Thorncrown Chapel, where he was determined to pop the question despite a venue coordinator who tried to shoo them away due to a wedding scheduled to take place there that day.

After Clark secretively showed her the engagement ring he had with him, however, the coordinator let them into the chapel and even took photos as he proposed to Ciara in front of the altar.

“I cried my way through it,” he says.

He also succeeded in completely surprising his new fiancée — albeit confusing her in the process, with uncharacteristically negative comments he’d made about marriage throughout their trip to throw her off his track.

Fortunately, none of these caused a change of heart in Ciara, and agreeing to become his wife was an easy answer.

So were some big steps they took after becoming engaged — which included Ciara becoming one of Clark’s dental patients and moving into his house (then renting her own newly purchased home to a friend).

Not quite so easy was wedding planning, which initially entailed visiting at least 20 venues before they found the right ones and settled on a wedding date of May 12, 2018. They will tie the knot at Guardian Angels Parish in Kansas City, then host a reception at The Terrace on Grand. And they’re excited to have friends and family in attendance at both, celebrating their love and witnessing their marriage. 

Beyond their big day, they have other big plans — ones for world travels, for having a family, for supporting each other’s professional goals and for being active in their community.

Of course, they’ll also continue the full life they’ve already formed together, which includes walks in the park with Monty — the dog they adopted as a sort of “pre-commitment commitment” a few months before becoming engaged — as well as home renovations and plenty of home cooking, thanks to the skills they each learned from their moms.

Most importantly, they’ll continue to build on the bond they had instantaneously. It’s one that’s already carried them through significant hardships, including their loss of Clark’s dad not long after their engagement. It’s one that makes both good and bad times better than they would be otherwise. And it’s one that validates the vision for their future that they’ve had almost all along.

“We just knew we were going to spend our lives together,” Ciara says. “It was hard to picture anything else.” 

"If you're going to watch me eat a pound
of bacon, we have to be something serious."