Professors change lives, but when Kim Young started working at SUNY Brockport in 2014, she had no idea she’d be part of such a big change for two of her former students. Tori and Aaron Marbone were married this fall by none other than their beloved professor Kim Young.
Young’s first day at Brockport also happened to be former student Tori Marbone’s first day as well.
Both a little nervous trying to navigate the waters of professor and freshmen, a bond began to form.
“I had a class with her on my first day of college, which I learned was also her first day at Brockport. I ended up having anywhere from one to three classes with her each year I was there, most of which I chose to take because at that time she was always creating and offering new classes for the major, and I liked being one of the ‘guinea pigs,’” Tori said.
Time went on and classes became more difficult. As Tori grew to senior status, she spent more and more time with Young.
“Kim is both a hard and chill professor, and I spent a lot of time in her office talking about both school and life so we got to know each other more,” Tori said.
While at Brockport, Tori decided to join The Stylus. In this small office, Tori met her future coworker, friend and soon-to-be husband.
“I definitely credit the Stylus for our relationship. It’s funny because I remember thinking back then, ‘I’m not going to find a relationship at a party or something, it’s never just going to be a random person. It’s probably going to be someone in a class or extra-curricular, probably someone like Aaron,’ and then a few months later I was asking him to be my boyfriend,” Tori said.
This attraction wasn’t just one sided either, Aaron took a liking to Tori as well and also credits The Stylus.
“Without the Stylus we never would have met. We technically met first in classes but didn’t truly know each other until The Stylus. Spending countless hours in a basement grinding away at the paper every week, we got to know each other really well. We saw each other at our happiest and at our most stressed out. Chit-chat over InDesign turned into genuine interest, goofy antics turned into core memories and hours of time together turned into love,” Aaron said.
As the couple grew into individual journalists, they also had a budding romance on their side.
Years flew by and Aaron had to graduate a year before Tori. He left after his graduation in 2017 to the Adirondacks to start his career as a reporter.
The next year, Tori graduated and started her career in Batavia, but this meant they had to live apart for a while.
They were apart until the pandemic hit and Aaron convinced Tori to move to the Adirondacks with him in May of 2019.
“Tori said she would not stay there, she wanted to live in a city. The deal was she was going to move to the Adirondacks and work remotely for the Batavia paper as a design page editor, but she fell in love with the Adirondacks and now she works for The Adirondack Enterprise as well,” Young said.
That year, Tori knew she wanted to marry Aaron, and she had an idea for a nostalgic way of doing it.
Tori got in contact with the students at The Stylus at the time and was able to run an ad in that paper proposing to Aaron. She kept this a secret from the Wednesday it was published, till that Saturday when she took him back to their old office and she asked him to marry her.
Then the wedding planning started and that came with some pretty big questions.
One of those being, who would officiate their wedding?
“Choosing Kim to officiate the wedding was actually a very easy decision. We didn’t have a particular officiant in mind, and I know it’s pretty easy for anyone to get ordained in New York state, so I started thinking about people we both know who are important to us, and Kim was one of the first people who popped into my head,” Tori said. “And once that idea was there, it stuck. We already had Kim in mind months before we even set a date and had a venue, but we didn’t officially ask her until we gave her a Save the Date.”
Since the three of them kept in touch after Tori and Aaron graduated, it was easy for them to know they wanted to ask Kim to be part of their special day.
“Last year we met for lunch and they asked me if I would be the officiant of their wedding,” Young said. “Of course I didn’t have the credentials, so I had to go online and become a wedding officiant. I was thrilled and I was crying and thrilled to be asked to do such a thing for two great students,” Young said.
College is where you meet people who stick with you for the rest of your life. Tori, Aaron and Kim are no exception to this rule and will keep the memories of SUNY Brockport and the Marbone’s wedding on Sept. 30 in their hearts forever.
