From Uber to the Altar! Couple Marries After Meeting During Fateful Car Ride: It's 'Unbelievable'
Micaela O’Toole and Jared Thomas, of Kansas City, Kansas, hit it off the moment he stepped into her Uber in September 2016. Less than three years later, they exchanged vows in what they call an “Uber love story.”
“We’re really excited to be married … When we met we had sparks going between us in the Uber,” O’Toole, 30, tells PEOPLE. “Then we dated for a week. Within a week I called my mom and I was like, ‘I met my husband!’ “
O’Toole was driving for Uber while in school at St. Louis University when she picked up Thomas and his relatives, who were heading to a nearby music festival. Thomas, 31, says that he climbed in the front seat, where he and O’Toole chatted the entire ride.
“You could tell there was a connection. We got to the end of the ride and it was an awkward moment where we both looked at each other,” Thomas recalls. “I didn’t wanna be the creepy guy asking for my Uber driver’s number, and she didn’t wanna be the creepy Uber driver asking for my number. I just choked under pressure.”
As fate would have it, they connected a month later when they matched on Bumble, a dating app in which women send the first message after matching with a user. O’Toole says she didn’t hesitate when she saw Thomas on the app, and immediately reached out.
“Hey Jared! Wow- this is pretty random, but I was actually your uber driver a couple of weeks ago and took you and your friends to LouFest!” O’Toole wrote in the message. “I really thought you were cute and was impressed that you had more freckles than me!”
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They went on their first date the next day.
“We went to a wine bar in St. Louis and I never wanted that date to end! We were on our date for four or five hours. It was so fun,” O’Toole gushes. “We just were so excited to meet each other and a little nervous obviously. We were like, this is too good to be true.”
As they got to know each other, Thomas wrote O’Toole a sweet (and funny) poem about their love story.
“I was chilling’ at my cousins and drinking a beer when I looked out the window and yelled, ‘The Uber’s here!’ ” he began. “I walked down the sidewalk I looked up to see the most beautiful girl Uber driver looking at me.”
They became engaged in June 2017, with O’Toole sharing their love story in a sweet Instagram post to announce the big news, and wed on March 16 in a St. Patrick’s Day-themed wedding.
“Our wedding hashtag was #UbertotheAltar. Uber was kind enough to give us a promo code for our wedding guests,” O’Toole says. “All of our guests were able to Uber to the church for free!”
Photos from the ceremony showed the bride and groom smiling and even posing alongside a bagpiper dressed in a kilt.
Now, O’Toole says Thomas can’t help but recall their love story to drivers when they find themselves in an Uber — both as passengers.
“Everything had to go right for us to meet. It wasn’t like we just happened to be classmates and saw each other every day and decided we like each other or a friend set us up,” Thomas says.
“Literally, if I had called that Uber five seconds earlier and gotten the first one instead of the second one, Micaela would’ve been right outside the door in the road, a sidewalk away, and I never would have met her. What are the chances of her being in that area and linking with my phone? What are the chances that it all plays out and happens like it does? It’s just unbelievable.”
