The place holds special meaning for James, because it was a favorite spot of his mother, who died five years ago. "I wanted to have the wedding there because I felt my mother's spirit would be especially strong there, and it was," says James. The ritual was performed by Rev. Sue Eaton, a minister who was very close with his mother, who had given the eulogy at his mother's funeral.

James met Stefania in May of 2004, while appearing at a Star Trek convention in Bellaria, Italy. She was working as a translator for him, and after four days of being together on a professional basis, it wasn't until the last evening that James and Stefania took a fateful walk on the beach and decided they wanted to see each other again. Distance presented a problem, as she lived in Parma, in the north of Italy (also her home town), and James resided in Los Angeles. The solution? After a month of emails and phone calls, they decided to meet in Ireland--incidentally, the ancestral home of the Horans--where they spent a week travelling across the country and getting to know each other better. "That's where we really fell in love," says James; but then what?

Well, after a couple of two week vacations from her office job spent in LA with James during the months of August and September, Stefania came back again for Christmas, and that's when James asked her to marry him. "She went home in January, packed and returned here in February, and at the end of April, we were married!" says an ecstatic James. The couple plan to return to Italy at the end of the year to celebrate Christmas with the bride's family.