An Elegant Ballroom Wedding At the Bacara Resort and Spa in Santa Barbara, California

Zachary Hyman couldn’t keep a poker face—he told everyone at the table, “I’m going to marry that girl.” He hadn’t even met World Poker Tour anchor Kimberly Lansing yet, and when they were introduced that day in Atlantic City, they simply shook hands and went their separate ways. 

Still, Kimberly says, “It was love at first sight,” and when their paths crossed again in Reno a few months later, she interviewed him, capturing their relationship’s opening exchanges on camera.

In the two years after their first date in Las Vegas, the two hardly spent a weekend apart, even though his company, Central Payments, is located in San Francisco and she was covering tournaments worldwide from her base in L.A. Their courtship was “a lot of fun” and “very carefree,” says Kimberly. Yet, she quickly realized Zach was her “soul mate.” “My dad always told me: ‘You have to really admire your partner.’ I didn’t really get it,” she says. “And then I met Zach.”

She remembers the day in March of 2010 when it first struck her: “I’m ready. I wonder when he’s going to propose.” Zach had asked for her hand on bended knee throughout their relationship—jokingly. So, when he knelt on the beach in Cabo San Lucas the very next evening, of course, she thought he was bluffing ... until she saw the ring. “We were on the same page,” she reflects.

At 2 a.m., after a long work day in Indiana and just days before their wedding, Kimberly typed her vows on her phone as her heart’s emotions flowed. She expected tears to fall as she recited the words while standing beneath the chuppah with Zach, but she kept her composure. Prepared with tissues tucked in her gown, little did she know, “I would have to pull one out and give it to Zach,” she says. The ceremony—conducted by a close friend—was miked, but the sound system was silenced during their vows making the moment intimate and powerful.

After a cocktail hour accompanied by a lively Brazilian quartet, 150 guests discovered the ballroom elegantly transformed for dinner and dancing. “I wanted it to transport people; to make them feel like they were on vacation,” Kimberly says of the vibe. “Dancing with my new wife,” was a highlight, says Zach, as was his twin brother and business partner’s hilarious best man’s speech. The evening’s pinnacle came when a grand piano was wheeled in and Grammy Award-winning singer Melissa Manchester—a long-time friend of Kimberly’s family—sang “Through the Eyes of Love.”