An Eagles parade wedding and three other romantic stories of couples who bleed green

In the City of Brotherly Love, where collective infatuation with the Eagles rivals even the greatest romances, passion and heart have been on display all week.

From Delaware County to South Jersey and beyond, it was in the teary eyes of fans as they watched the Birds beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 40-22, and thought of their departed loved ones who would have loved to see this. On Broad Street, it was in the joyful postgame celebration that went on into the wee hours of the morning.

For several couples, the postgame celebrations were the perfect place to pop the question. For some, Friday’s parade, which fittingly falls on Valentine’s Day, will be also a fitting backdrop for their wedding.

Love and beer will be in the air, Philly. Watch your head and your heart.

Lo O’Neil dropped to one knee near Broad and Vine Streets, amid the masses of Eagles fans celebrating the Super Bowl win.

Laughing giddily, Chelsea Brown pulled at her glove, removing it so O’Neil could slip the ring on her finger.

A crowd of onlookers grew, screaming with excitement. As Brown pulled O’Neil to his feet, dozens of strangers pumped their fists in the air as they enveloped the couple, who met on the dating app OkCupid.

“It’s the ‘City of Brotherly Love’ for a reason,” Brown said. “At its core, everybody appreciates love. There were no questions, no qualifiers.”

“We are a proud queer couple,” she added, “but in that moment, we were just in love to everybody around us.”

Their love will be on display once again on Friday: They plan to tie the knot in an intimate, self-uniting ceremony during the Eagles' Super Bowl parade.

They hope to plan a larger wedding in the future. Brown admits she never imagined getting married in Eagles sweatshirts, jeans, and a veil she bought on Amazon.

Brown, who is bisexual, and O’Neil, who is trans, are expediting their union out of uncertainty and fear about the future of LGBTQ rights in the current political climate.

The decision might be a sadder one “if I was marrying anyone but the love of my life,” Brown said.

And if they weren’t sharing their celebrations with a city and a team that has been intertwined with their love story.

“We’re doing this, and laughing along the way, and also celebrating because the Eagles are the underdog,” Brown said. “We’re kind of an underdog story in a weird way right now.”

Brown, 35, was raised an Eagles fan in a family of diehards, the kind of people that she said “lock in” every Sunday and prohibit cross talk during games. Brown watched the Super Bowl at her parents’ home in Chester County and declined some of O’Neil’s requests that she head back to the city early, given that the Eagles had such a solid lead. She told him simply, “I can’t leave. Mahomes is a second-half quarterback,” referencing Kansas City QB Patrick Mahomes’ history of comebacks.

O’Neil, a 35-year-old bartender, wasn’t a Birds fan from birth, but Brown’s devotion to the team has rubbed off on him over the last eight years.

“I grew up hating sports,” O’Neil said. “I love it now. I’ve totally done a 180.”

“The Eagles are so cool. They are so kind,” he added. “It’s such an ‘us’ kind of team.”

Renee Handline noticed her boyfriend, Samuel DeMarini, was anxious all weekend leading up to the Super Bowl.

“I thought, ‘It’s just the Birds game’” he’s nervous about, said Handline, 27.

Then, after the Eagles' big win, as the couple, their friends, and Handline’s mom joined the crowds on Broad Street, the true source of DeMarini’s nerves became clear.

As Handline danced in the street, DeMarini tapped her on the shoulder and descended to one knee.

“I immediately said, ‘Yes, yes, yes,’” Handline said. “It was just so many emotions. … The Birds won, and I’m marrying my best friend.”

DeMarini, 29, got the idea to propose after the Super Bowl when he saw others do the same thing following the Eagles’ victory in the NFC championship game. He had formulated a backup plan, too, just in case the Super Bowl hadn’t gone Philadelphia’s way.

“I’ve never been more nervous for a football game,” he said.

Both Handline and DeMarini are lifelong Eagles fans and alumni of Temple University. They met on Tinder, where Handline had noticed the Eagles sweatshirt in one of her future husband’s photos.

For the parade, they plan to host friends and family at their home near Broad Street in South Philly.

“We can pretend the parade’s for us,” DeMarini said.

The last week before a big wedding is nearly always a mad dash, even under ordinary circumstances.

When Jessica Murphy, 29, and Tom Friel, 30, woke up Monday, four days before their wedding, it quickly got more mad.

“We were so excited to celebrate the win on Sunday,” Murphy said. The couple met when they were both students at Pennsylvania State University, when running back Saquon Barkley was on the football team there.

“We said, ‘There’s no way they’ll do the parade on Friday,’” Murphy said.

But alas.

Still, the couple was relieved to learn their venue, one of Cescaphe’s several Philadelphia locations, was not along the parade route. They have notified guests that cell service might be spotty that day, and getting to the venue could be tricky. They also axed plans for wedding photos outside City Hall.

Some of Friel’s groomsmen said they might hit up the parade before getting ready for the wedding. Some vendors told Murphy the same.

“We’re hoping they’ll show up not drunk,” she joked Wednesday.

The happy couple, both dedicated Eagles fans themselves, won’t be in the crowds on Broad Street on Friday.

Still, Eagles championships have been good luck for the pair, who had been friends in college and reconnected in 2018, just after the Birds won their first Super Bowl. Murphy bragged that she had celebrated the win on Broad Street after the game, and Friel was “insanely jealous” that he couldn’t do the same because he was living in Hoboken, N.J., at the time. Murphy said she would only date a guy who lived in Philly, so Friel moved.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Super Bowl started our relationship, and now our wedding is on the day of the parade,” Murphy said.

Tabatha “Tabby” Heenan thought her boyfriend, Joseph Bruno Jr., was playing a joke on her in the middle of the Super Bowl party.

During the fourth quarter, they were surrounded by family at a relative’s Northeast Philly home. Bruno called Heenan over from across the room. He ostensibly wanted her to do one of his signature Eagles chants, a ritual that involves crossing arms and banging them together while yelling E-A-G-L-E-S.

The group started cheering and blowing noisemakers. All of a sudden, Heenan said, she knew something was up.

“I was so shocked,” said Heenan, 27. “Afterward, I blacked out because I was so excited. I was like, ‘Wait, did they even win?’”

The couple, who met at a restaurant where Heenan worked, won’t be at the parade. Bruno, 30, has to work for the Parking Authority, while Heenan will be at the couple’s Port Richmond home, watching the festivities on TV with their 3- and 7-year-old daughters.

While they have not started planning their wedding, they know the Eagles will be a part of it. Bruno has already said that the inside of his suit will be emblazoned with an Eagles pattern.

And Heenan has always wanted her bridesmaids to wear green.