Love: Trang Do and Kevin Nguyen

Knock knock knock!

There was that guy Kevin again, knocking on the classroom door to get Trang's attention so she could get a mutual friend's attention for him.

At least that's why the knocking started.

After a few weeks, Kevin had also shown up at the bell to walk Trang to her next class at Central High.

So it went until the big New Year's Eve of the turn of the century, when Trang, one of her sisters, and some friends took the El from Kensington to Penn's Landing, and Kevin and his brother drove there from their home in the same neighborhood.

The groups met by coincidence. "Everybody else left us, and we were alone," Trang said. "It was freezing, and so we just kind of huddled together and talked."

After the fireworks, Kevin asked whether she'd be his girlfriend.

They were both 15. She'd never had a boyfriend, and he'd never had a girlfriend.

"I want to try," she said. "But I'm not really allowed to date."

Kevin wasn't allowed either; his Vietnamese parents were just as strict as hers.

They walked together to meet those with whom they had come. "I was afraid and shy, and I didn't want to kiss her in front of them," Kevin said. "She kissed me on the cheek, and then ran off."

After school, they would go to the Gallery for pizza or ice cream. Once, Kevin's dad drove by and they quickly dropped hands. Another time, her older sister caught them at the Eighth and Market El stop. "This is my friend Kevin," Trang said. "Friends don't hold hands!" her sister said.

Their relationship was soon an open secret, one accepted but not endorsed by their parents.

"I loved her really early on," Kevin said.

He told her so after dating for two weeks, and Trang freaked out. "You don't know what love is!" she said. "You are a baby!" But soon after, Trang was saying those words, too, and writing them in love notes.

Part of the attraction was Kevin's work ethic. "He had calluses on his palm from working so hard," she said. "That was an impressive trait to me."

Kevin detailed cars for a local dealer. During the summer, he and a friend drove daily to Gap in Lancaster County to load trucks.

"Trang is a very charismatic person, very loving, very caring - and I liked that a lot," Kevin said. "She's open-minded and open-hearted."

They saw each other daily in high school, then twice a week when she studied mass communications at Penn and he finance at La Salle. Junior year, they won the approval of each other's parents.

Time together became painfully infrequent after the couple, now both 31, began their careers. As a bank examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, he frequently travels. She's a broadcast journalist who earned her master's degree at Northwestern, then took a series of reporting jobs in Huntsville, Ala.; York, Pa.; and, two years ago, ABC2 in Baltimore, where she's an investigative reporter.

"We decided we weren't going to block each other's career, nor abandon our own to follow the other," Kevin said.

Those four years in Alabama were toughest. They tried to see each other every three months and spoke by phone nightly.

Since her days in York, Trang has returned home to Kensington each weekend. In late December 2013, Kevin scored some then-hard-to-get tickets to the Barnes Foundation and made a dinner reservation at R2L.

Trang stopped to enjoy every painting while Kevin stared at his watch - they could not miss this reservation. When she'd had her fill, he suggested they walk to the Art Museum, but Trang was too cold. He tried the Comcast building, thinking the Christmas show would be running in the lobby, but they had just missed a showing, and there was no time to wait for the next.

"I didn't want to embarrass her by doing it in public at the restaurant," Kevin said. "This was my chance."

And so in a random alleyway by Comcast, he tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hey, I have something to ask you," Kevin said.

He opened a small box, revealing a ring. His knee hadn't yet hit the ground when Trang started to cry.

"She was bawling, and nodding her head and saying yes," Kevin said.

"He was crying, too," said Trang.

Trang walked down the aisle with her dad, Hung, who then took a seat in the first row. The couple then left their places to serve tea to Hung and Trang's mom, Tam, and Kevin's parents, Tri and Sinh.

Traditionally, this tea ceremony would have been a much longer and elaborate affair, held the morning of the wedding and out of view of most guests. "We wanted to honor our heritage, and honor our parents, but we didn't want to complicate the day," Kevin said.

Tony, who officiated in both Vietnamese and English, is one of Trang's best friends and also was her "bridesman."

The couple wrote their own vows. Kevin promised to support and nurture Trang always, and Trang promised Kevin she would help him save for another fancy Mitsubishi.

"He sold his beloved race car so that we could have a wedding," she said.

Ceremony and reception were both held at the Ballroom at the Ben - the scene of their junior prom. In keeping with their high school sweethearts theme, a tiny locker served as the card box, a bulletin board held pictures of the couple from back in the day, and their 200 guests' seating cards resembled little composition books.

Kevin was braced for a flood of emotion the first time he saw Trang before the pre-ceremony photos. "She looked so good, and I was really surprised by her dress," he said. He was not prepared for everything he felt when Trang entered the ceremony. "All of my emotions from the entire day just came together," he said. "This was really, really happening and we were going to be husband and wife, then and there."

Trang was amazed by Kevin's vows. He's not usually sentimental, but there he was, talking about his feelings for her in front of everyone. "We had been together almost 16 years at this point, and it was really neat that even after all this time, he can still surprise me."

A bargain: Trang fell in love with a dress online, then tried to forget it. "It cost more than probably what my car is worth," she said. But nothing compared. Trang checked a pre-owned wedding dress website, and there it was, in her size. Kevin drove her to Connecticut to try it on - she made him wait in the car while she did. She paid 40 percent of what the dress cost new.

The splurge: A photo booth and a caricature artist.

Five days in Iceland.

Kevin still lives in Kensington. During the week, Trang lives in Baltimore. It's a commuter marriage for now, so they're relishing the weekends.