A British man showed up uninvited to her Thanksgiving dinner. Now, they’ve been happily married for 20 years.

It was November 1997, and Dina Honour was hosting her very first Thanksgiving dinner. The 27-year-old invited a group of friends from New York City who, like her, had decided to stay in town for the holiday.

Dina had been through a challenging year. She had been battling depression following a painful breakup.

“I was slowly finding my way back to normal, and wasn’t actively searching for love,” Dina shares with Dinogo Travel today.

Instead of focusing on romance, Dina poured her energy into hosting her friends for the holiday. She had set up a dining table in her two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, which she shared with a roommate. Her sister had come from Boston, and she spent the entire morning preparing mashed potatoes and roasting turkey.

She had asked each guest to bring something to add to the feast. Before long, her friends began arriving, each with holiday treats in hand—cornbread, pies, and cranberry sauce.

Then Dina opened the door to greet one friend, only to discover he had brought two unexpected guests along.

This wasn’t the type of gathering where surprise plus-ones were welcome.

“I was not thrilled,” Dina remembers. “But then I saw him. And I thought, ‘Alright.’”

“Him” was Richard Steggall, a 25-year-old Brit visiting New York for the first time. He had come to the US with a friend whose brother lived in NYC. This brother happened to be a friend of Dina’s and had been invited to her dinner.

“To be honest, I had no clue what Thanksgiving was at the time,” Richard recalls today. “Growing up in the UK, I’d heard of it, but I had no idea about the meaning or importance of the holiday.”

During their vacation, Richard and his friends spent their days exploring New York’s sights and their nights clubbing.

On the morning of November 27, they had slept in after a late night out and were looking for somewhere to grab a meal.

One of their American friends explained that it was a national holiday, so most restaurants would be closed.

“But I know of a party going on where they might have some food,” he offered.

“That’s how he sold it to us,” Richard remembers. “We had no idea it would turn out to be a semi-formal Thanksgiving dinner, similar to how Christmas is celebrated in the UK.”

Richard first realized that showing up uninvited might have been a social blunder when he saw Dina’s face as she opened the door to her apartment.

But despite the awkwardness, he was immediately intrigued.

“From the very beginning, I was captivated by Dina,” he reflects today.

The feeling was mutual. Dina’s initial irritation at the surprise guests quickly faded as she found herself drawn to Richard.

“I thought he was incredibly handsome,” she says. “You couldn’t make it up, right? The tall, dark stranger who shows up at your door on Thanksgiving.”

She ushered the unexpected guests into the apartment. Richard and his fellow Brit, both feeling out of place, did their best to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

“The other uninvited guest and I sort of hid in the corner for a while, just trying to stay under the radar,” Richard recalls.

From his corner, Richard watched Dina move around the room, mingling with the guests.

“I thought she was stunning. Coming from London, she seemed like the epitome of a New York woman,” he says. “She was strong, confident, a bit loud, but hilarious – just full of energy. And I was totally smitten from the moment I saw her.”

Richard asked a few guests about Dina, but he didn’t approach her directly—he didn’t want to further inconvenience the hostess he’d already startled by showing up uninvited.

Bonding over pumpkin pie

When dessert time came, Dina brought Richard a slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream – a classic Thanksgiving treat that’s not very common in the UK.

Richard had never tasted it before, but he eagerly accepted.

They began chatting. Dina, a literature lover, casually referenced Shakespeare’s Ophelia. Richard recognized it – he was familiar with ‘Hamlet,’ he said.

“It was like a light bulb went off,” Dina recalls. “Not many guys you meet at a party – between sipping beer and eating pumpkin pie – are eager to dive into a conversation about ‘Hamlet.’”

The two spent the rest of the evening talking, quickly forming a connection.

“We realized we shared so much in our perspectives on life, the values that mattered to us as individuals, and the way we viewed the world and what we wanted out of life,” Richard says.

After dinner, the group headed to a bar. There, Dina and Richard were so engrossed in one another that Dina remembers her sister, who had come all the way from Boston for the dinner, being somewhat irritated.

“We sat on bar stools facing each other, pretty much ignoring everyone else,” she says. “We talked all night, and then continued the conversation the next day.”

On Friday afternoon, Richard was set to fly back to London.

Dina went with him to the subway station, and they said their goodbyes on the platform.

As the train doors shut, Dina remembers feeling an overwhelming sense of certainty.

“It was something deep and instinctual,” she reflects now.

Back at her apartment, Dina confided in her sister:

“That’s the man I’m going to marry,” she said.

Falling in love over the phone

When Richard arrived back in the UK after his trip to New York, he had been seeing someone. The first thing he did was end that relationship.

“I wasn’t sure what would happen,” he admits, “But I knew it was the right thing to do.”

The following day, Dina called him from New York.

And thus began a month of daily, long-distance phone calls, along with the occasional letter sent across the ocean.

“We had a kind of old-fashioned courtship over the phone,” Dina recalls.

At the time, she was working as a substitute teacher and would call Richard from the school’s break room.

Richard was working as a florist and Christmas tree vendor in Chelsea, London, and would occasionally DJ in the evenings. He’d talk to Dina after a long day at work or just before heading out to a club.

It was mid-December when Richard made the suggestion.

“Listen,” he said. “Why don’t you come to London for Christmas?”

“I wasn’t sure,” Dina recalls. “It’s Christmas, and I didn’t spend Thanksgiving with my family. Maybe I should be with them for the holidays.”

She also had reservations about opening her heart again. After a tough breakup earlier that year, she had just found peace and didn’t want to risk it.

But the thought kept echoing in her mind – this might be her moment to take a leap.

“I don’t want to regret passing this up,” she remembers thinking. “If this is the opportunity, I don’t want to let it slip away.”

One chilly December afternoon, Dina visited a travel agency and left with a plane ticket to London in her hand.

“It was a commitment, something real,” she says. “I was ready to take a chance, hoping it worked out, but also knowing that if it didn’t, it wouldn’t destroy me.”

Dina believes that the confidence she felt came from the self-assurance she had built after a difficult year. She trusted the bond with Richard, but more importantly, she trusted herself.

Her friends and family were 'cautiously hopeful,' she recalls. They supported her choice and wished for her belief in Richard to be proven right.

A Christmas Reunion

Dina traveled from New York to London on Christmas Day. When she arrived at Heathrow, Richard was there waiting for her. It was 9 p.m., and he greeted her with a bouquet of flowers from his Chelsea shop.

Richard had told his friends and family he met someone while in New York, but there hadn’t been enough time to dive into the details of their new relationship.

‘Everything moved so fast between November and December,’ Richard explains. ‘And with my job selling flowers and Christmas trees, the holiday season was non-stop, long hours every day.’

In the UK, December 26 is celebrated as Boxing Day, a national holiday. On that morning, Richard and Dina made their way to his parents' house.

‘In our family, we have a tradition of a Champagne brunch with smoked salmon,’ Richard remembers. ‘The whole family gathers around the table, enjoying Champagne, when Dina and I walk in.’

After introducing Dina to his family, Richard briefly stepped away. When he returned, he found Dina happily ‘holding court,’ sipping Champagne and chatting with everyone.

‘I left her with my parents, uncle, aunt, and sister, and they all got along famously,’ Richard recalls.

‘Everyone was so kind and welcoming,’ Dina says, reflecting on the warm reception from Richard’s family.

‘My parents were thrilled that I’d found someone,’ Richard says. ‘They could tell from the start it was love, and I think they'd say they saw a noticeable change in me. It was clear how happy I was.’

Later that day, Richard surprised Dina with a plane ticket. The two were set to fly to Majorca, Spain, with some of Richard’s friends to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

It was a fantastic trip, according to Dina, despite having to endure a bit of intense questioning from Richard’s friends, who were curious about their budding relationship.

Once the holidays ended, Dina had to head back to the US. However, Richard booked a spontaneous weekend trip to New York for the end of January 1998, and Dina made plans to visit London for Valentine’s Day.

For Valentine’s, the couple rented a sports car and stayed in a chic hotel in Richmond, a stylish area in west London.

‘It was all outside our usual comfort zones, but we tried to recreate a romantic weekend,’ Richard recalls.

He had bought a suit and a pair of smart shoes for the first time, and he remembers almost stumbling down the hotel stairs because the shoes weren’t broken in yet.

Moving to New York

In the spring of 1998, Richard left his job at the flower market, packed his bags, and headed to New York for three months, planning to spend the summer with Dina.

It wasn’t meant to be permanent, but looking back, Richard believes his friends and family had an inkling it was the start of something much longer.

‘The goodbyes we shared and some of the farewell parties had a sense of finality to them, as if it were more than just a temporary three-month separation – it felt like a farewell to a new chapter in life,’ says Richard.

Despite everything, Richard showed up with nothing more than a green duffel bag filled with clothes. He moved into Dina’s apartment, the very same one he had arrived at uninvited during Thanksgiving the year before.

The long summer days were spent together, discovering the city, wandering through Central Park and the East Village, and solidifying their conviction that they wanted to be together for the long term.

Although they both saw marriage as a possibility in their future, neither was ready to commit to it just yet, even though it might have been a practical solution for Richard to stay in the U.S.

‘We were both very clear that we wanted him to stay, and we would figure out how to make that happen,’ Dina recalls. ‘Marriage might come later, but that wasn’t our immediate focus – those were two different things for us at that time.’

Richard began searching for jobs that would sponsor a visa and eventually landed a position at the United Nations.

‘When you tell people the story and they just can’t believe it, they think you’re some kind of secret agent working for the UN,’ Richard jokes about the reaction he often gets.

It was a remarkable career opportunity, and with that, Richard and Dina began to settle into their life together more seriously in New York.

A New Year’s Eve Proposal

Their love story began on Thanksgiving, continued through Christmas, and culminated on New Year's Eve 1999 when Richard proposed, marking the start of a new chapter as the millennium approached.

The couple remembers watching the fireworks light up Sydney Harbour that morning. While Dina was in awe of the spectacular show, Richard sat quietly, his nerves getting the best of him.

‘I was sitting there, feeling nervous and irritable,’ Richard recalls. ‘Dina turned to me and said, ‘What’s wrong with you? It’s New Year’s Eve, and the millennium is here!’” he laughs.

That night, they attended a friend’s party in a high-rise apartment overlooking the city. By then, Richard’s anxiety had reached a whole new level.

‘I was struggling to keep my composure,’ Richard admits. ‘I had started telling a few people, and their excitement was overwhelming.’

The secret came out when Richard couldn't open a bottle of Champagne due to his trembling hands.

He passed the bottle off to someone else, then made his way through the crowd to find Dina. As the clock struck midnight, he asked her to marry him.

‘In my excitement, I think I accidentally kicked him in the shin,’ Dina recalls.

They wed in April 2001 at the Manhattan Penthouse, nestled on Fifth Avenue in New York. Their British friends and family stayed in the upscale hotels near Union Square.

‘We wanted our friends and family, especially those coming from London and near Boston, to experience New York at its finest, so we picked a venue on the top floor with windows on all sides,’ Dina explains.

Guests marveled at the stunning view of the Empire State Building while raising a glass to the couple’s future.

After the celebration, Dina and Richard arranged for limousines to take their guests to various destinations, some heading to bars at Union Square or enjoying a nightcap at their hotels.

‘There are all kinds of stories about where people ended up,’ Richard says. ‘My father was reportedly last seen in a limousine, standing up through the sunroof, pointing uptown as the car cruised up Broadway. I’m not sure if that’s true, but it’s become a family legend.’

A new chapter in Europe

After an unforgettable honeymoon in Australia, Richard and Dina continued to thrive in New York, eventually expanding their family with two sons.

In 2008, the family’s journey took a new direction when they relocated to Nicosia, Cyprus, for Richard’s work with the UN.

When the chance to move came up, the couple had begun to feel that their New York apartment no longer suited them. Richard, who had always craved new experiences, was eager for a fresh adventure.

However, the decision to leave for Cyprus wasn’t easy. Their youngest son was only six months old, and Dina, the more cautious of the two, initially had doubts. But after a lengthy discussion, they decided to take the plunge.

‘We concluded that the benefits outweighed the risks,’ says Dina.

Upon arriving in Nicosia, the couple faced some initial culture shock but eventually settled in, making lasting friendships and fully embracing the Mediterranean way of life. They were happy to see their children grow up surrounded by stunning landscapes and year-round sunshine.

‘I think it really shifted our perspective on the kind of life we could lead,’ says Richard.

So much so that, instead of returning to New York as they had once planned, the family eventually made the decision to move to Copenhagen.

Fast forward to 2023, and Dina and Richard are now living in Berlin. Their children, aged 19 and 15, may have been born in New York, but they’ve grown up all over Europe and have developed a love for travel. Their eldest son is now studying in the UK.

Richard continues his work with the UN, while Dina has established herself as an author and editor. In 2018, she published a book titled ‘There’s Some Place Like Home: Lessons From a Decade Abroad’ and recently released a new memoir, ‘It’s a Lot to Unpack,’ in November 2023.

Thanksgiving Traditions

It has been over a decade since Richard and Dina last lived in the United States, but Thanksgiving still holds great meaning for them – after all, it was the holiday that marked the beginning of their journey together.

‘The kids are familiar with the story; it’s become a part of our family’s history,’ Dina shares.

‘It’s a time of year when we pause and reflect on our lives – to look back at everything, from the very beginning to where we are now,’ Richard says.

Richard recalls that during his early years in the US, Thanksgiving quickly became his favorite American tradition.

‘It was enchanting. You’d enjoy a wonderful meal with family, and then the next day, you’d just relax in sweatpants, watching TV, all together. It was pure downtime,’ he remembers fondly.

When Richard and Dina initially relocated to Cyprus, they made an effort to replicate their traditional US Thanksgiving celebrations. However, as they adapted to life in Europe, where Thanksgiving is just another working day, they began to mark the occasion in new ways.

They started a new tradition of dining out as a family to reflect on their gratitude. This year, the celebration will be different since their eldest son will be studying in the UK, but Dina and Richard still intend to observe the holiday.

‘We’ll go out for dinner with our younger son, and we’ll raise a toast to our older son, who we’ve successfully sent off into the world,’ says Dina.

‘As always, we have so much to be thankful for, and we’re especially grateful to have each other – even if there’s no pumpkin pie this year,’ Dina adds.

Richard and Dina both express their deep gratitude for the serendipitous encounter that brought them together, the immediate bond they shared, and the countless conversations they’ve had, covering the past, present, and future.

‘We still spend endless hours talking,’ Dina shares.

‘It all began when Dina offered me that pumpkin pie – the spark that ignited a conversation that’s been going on for 26 years,’ Richard recalls.