Magic is in the air with Katrina Kroetch and Brendan McGuigan
ALL DRESSED UP, Brendan McGuigan and Katrina Kroetch attend Dapper Days at Disneyland.
Brendan McGuigan doesn’t believe in soulmates, but he told us that he knew very quickly that he’d found his in Katrina Kroetch. McGuigan, a marketing consultant who grew up in Mendocino, California, met Kroetch, a native of Portland, Oregon, two years ago on Tinder.
The dating app was something Kroetch had tried a couple of times but had not had great experiences with. McGuigan met Kroetch on one of his first Tinder forays. “I think it’s absolutely insane that we met (through the app) and had so much in common,” said Kroetch.
The couple’s first date experience gave them quite a few clues about their compatibility. “I had been wanting to go to Zombie Joe’s Urban Death tour — an immersive spooky theater experience in NoHo — that week,” said Kroetch. When she suggested the idea to McGuigan, she found that he too liked immersive theater. They agreed to go for their first date.
They had talked briefly about possibly meeting at a tiki bar prior to the show. “We are so alike,” said Kroetch, “that we both took the initiative and made restaurant reservations.” Not only that, they both made reservations for the exact same restaurant and for the exact same time.
The two discovered that they both collect tiki mugs and vinyl records. They’ve now merged the collections in their Windsor Square apartment. That first date lasted until four in the morning, and the commonalities kept rolling in. Both love vintage clothing (they wear it a lot!), the television shows “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and its spinoff, “Angel,” musical theater and art deco architecture, and they have yearly passes to Disneyland and are definitely “yes” people. Needless to say, the two quickly fell for each other.
Kroetch and McGuigan both do a lot of their work from home. Although their jobs couldn’t be more different — Kroetch, also known as Katrina K., is a magician who has performed on Penn & Teller — McGuigan told us their jobs are 80 percent similar. “We are both very organized and are planners,” he said. The two told us they work at all times and never close their doors on work. But they also both make a priority of taking three-hour breaks to spontaneously go scuba diving or mushroom picking, for example.
Partially as an ode to his magical lady love, McGuigan — who was hired to promote Mendocino County 10 years ago, and continues to do so — changed the county’s tagline to “Magic is real.”
The couple found their beloved apartment somewhat accidentally. They had been driving around looking at the art deco buildings in the area and saw the Los Altos Apartments. Kroetch, doing a quick search, discovered that it had been a filming location for “Angel.” They decided to take a tour just for fun. Shortly thereafter, they found themselves residents, and they couldn’t be happier.
“It’s like living in an old Hollywood hotel,” said Kroetch. She added that the neighborhood is “like a Pinterest board of when we’re millionaires. Everything is old and beautiful and has history.”
In Larchmont, the two love to eat at Great White, and they frequent the sushi restaurants and Chevalier’s Books. Though they travel a lot and can’t have a dog of their own, the couple loves to live vicariously through those who do have pets. Kroetch has learned how to say “Your dog is cute” in multiple languages. When the young couple was in Lima, Peru, McGuigan told us, Kroetch asked their driver to stop multiple times so that she could compliment people’s dogs.
The two are constantly thinking of fun things to do together. Whether it’s dressing up for Dapper Days at Disneyland, hanging out with alpacas or (with nine other couples) buying out a small cruise ship in Egypt and dressing in vintage explorer clothing and immersing themselves in a feeling of the past, the two definitely know how to live life fully, together.
“Our relationship is naturally strong because we communicate well,” said McGuigan. But the two work at it, too. “We see ourselves as solving problems together and always know we’re on the same team,” he continued. The couple told us they understand that they’re going to rupture things at times but are both aligned in their commitment to the rupture repair cycle.
Kroetch told us the two send each other memes and songs and that often she’ll receive a long, heartfelt email. “It’s like I get a little gift in my inbox,” she said.
“We’ll get married at some point and buy a 1920s house,” said McGuigan. But for now, the two are enjoying committing 100 percent to all of their random, fun adventures and to laughing a lot.
Category: Entertainment