Love at second sight: United in helping those in need, two local health care professionals say ‘I do’

About a week before their wedding, Jonathan Bayuk and Tiffany Lemelin sat side by side at their computer. He leaned toward her, she put a hand on his back, and he pulled his phone out of his pocket to play me their song. I was on the other end of the screen, but it felt like I was in on something.

Bayuk, the beloved local allergist and the founder of One Roof, which produces concerts to raise money for the homeless, was once an aspiring musician at the New England Conservatory of Music. As he sang along to Jack Johnson’s cover of “We’re Going to Be Friends,” first recorded by the White Stripes in 2002, Lemelin swayed in her seat.

“Fall is here, hear the yell / Back to school, ring the bell … I can tell that we are going to be friends.”

It’s a sweet song about finding your person before you’re old enough to know what love is, made sweeter, perhaps, because Bayuk and Lemelin are both marrying for the second time.

Falling in love

“We’re joined together through love and purpose,” says Lemelin, a health care administrator who works with Bayuk, the president of the Allergy & Immunology Associates of New England (AIANE).

“As a physician,” says Bayuk, “which I have been for 27 years, you have to respect that there is so much struggle and pain in the world, and Tiffany and I are dedicated to helping those who need help.”

The two first met 17 years ago, when Lemelin brought her then-teenage daughter Kali to see Bayuk professionally. After Kali could drive herself to appointments, Lemelin never saw him again. Until he popped up on her dating app in September 2023.

For their first date that fall, Bayuk took Lemelin roller skating at Interskate 91 in Hadley. When he suggested the activity, Lemelin, who grew up skating in Agawam, felt it was fate.

But his date with destiny was a bit daunting. “We had a great day, despite the pain in my calves and thighs,” he says with a laugh. (He notes that at 54 he is six years older than Lemelin, 48.)

When you know, you know

A month later, the two took their first overnight trip to New York City. They got a pedicab and stopped in Times Square, where a caricaturist offered to draw their picture. In the black-and-white sketch, Lemelin looks chic in a low-cut dress and a beret, one eyebrow raised like she knows a secret. Beside her, Bayuk sports a tux and holds a bouquet of flowers in his right hand. Above his head is a thought bubble: “I love Tiffany.” In his left hand is some bling: an engagement ring.

Bayuk gaped at the artist, who said simply, “I know.”

When I raised my eyebrows hearing this, Lemelin stepped off-screen for a minute and presented the artsy prophecy. Even without color, the ring sparkled, and Bayuk looked serene.

The last leg of their October excursion took place at St. Patrick's Cathedral, where, out of thousands of people, the couple was chosen to present the gifts at Mass, a symbolic gesture of gratitude.

The two practicing Catholics whose faith was paramount took it as another sign. “We were both like, ‘God has aligned us,’” says Lemelin.

Soon the couple worked on aligning their families. Bayuk’s son Jameson, now 21 and an honors student in chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, would be his best man, while Lemelin’s daughters Riley, 20, and Kali, 29, would be her maids-of-honor. Kali didn’t need much convincing.

“One evening, Jonathan and I were saying goodnight,” says Lemelin, “and my daughter Kali came downstairs. ‘Dr. Bayuk’s on the phone,’ I said, ‘and he wants to check in with you.’ They chatted like old friends.”

When Kali got off the phone, Lemelin revealed that they were dating. “She’s like, ‘You better not hurt him!’”

Language of the heart

The couple was smitten. For Bayuk, it was love at first sight (or, more accurately, second sight). Lemelin felt they were “bonded” since the first date, and notes that when Bayuk traveled to Ireland that winter and forgot his phone, he still figured out a way to call every day.

Lemelin, a health care consultant through her business Talk to Tiffany, had spent a few months rebooting herself after her last relationship. A graduate of Westfield State University, she dove deep into the five “love languages,” a term coined by Gary Chapman in 1992 to describe how couples express affection: through words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service and physical touch.

“Physical touch,” she says, “he wants that,” rubbing Bayuk on the back.

“Or rubbing her on the back,” he says, returning the favor.

One act of service Bayuk performed for her was dressing up as Flynn from the Disney movie “Tangled,” in which the golden-haired Rapunzel falls in love with her prince. (His nickname is “JB Love Flynn,” while hers is “Baby Girl.”) In another photo they shared with me, Bayuk looks coy as Lemelin sports a thick braid that winds down her back.

At work, Bayuk’s patients were excited to meet the woman who made their doctor sing. After a painful divorce, says Bayuk, “We were both treading water in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and swam together to shore. We needed each other and we were the perfect fit. I wish this for everyone.”

Now they and their German shepherds, Whitney and Zeus, carpool to the office every day. In a sweet twist, Kali also works at AIANE.

Lemelin recalls that years ago, when her mother would drive her granddaughter to see Dr. Bayuk, she would tell Lemelin, “His wife is the luckiest wife on the planet.”

“So now that’s me,” she says.

On July 18, 2024, Bayuk took Lemelin, her mother and Bayuk’s father to Dingle, Ireland, where he proposed to her at Gallarus Oratory. As she said yes, a crowd of joyous tourists formed around them. It would take less than six months to plan the wedding on July 19, 2025 at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Florence, followed by a reception at the Log Cabin in Holyoke.

Last words

Before we end our call, I ask what word would best sum their partner up. Lemelin chooses “compassion.”

“He’s a wonderful father to Jameson, he opened his heart to both of my daughters, he accepted the whole package, and as a doctor he just naturally has that,” she says.

Bayuk characterizes Lemelin as “amazing”: “Everything she’s done and continues to do, how she treats the people around her and her children … we are all going through a very difficult time in our country and the world and we are here to help all those who need it. She is amazing in the way we can do that together.”

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