When did Donald Trump and Melania Knauss first meet and marry?

1. How the couple’s origin story is consistently reported — and where memories diverge

Contemporary reporting and later timelines uniformly state that Donald Trump and Melania Knauss were first introduced in 1998 at a New York fashion party, often attributed to Paolo Zampolli’s invitation or to a Kit-Kat Club event during New York Fashion Week; this meeting is cited repeatedly across timelines and profiles ^{[1] [2] [5] [6]}. Melania’s memoir and interviews offer slightly different recollections of the exact setting and month, describing a September 1998 encounter and emphasizing personal impressions rather than the party host, which produces small narrative differences but does not contradict the year or city of first contact ^{[2] [5]}. These variations reflect typical memory divergence in personal recollections years later while core facts—city, year, fashion-world context—remain consistent.

2. The wedding date and site: converging documentary evidence

Multiple independent accounts and wedding reports identify January 22, 2005, at Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Palm Beach, Florida, followed by a reception at Mar-a-Lago, as the formal wedding date and locations; contemporary coverage from 2005 and anniversary pieces corroborate these specifics and list high-profile guests and reception details ^{[3] [6] [4]}. Photographic records, news dispatches, and later retrospectives all anchor the couple’s marriage to that date, making the January 22, 2005 wedding one of the most reliably documented elements of their relationship timeline ^{[7] [4]}. Where some summaries omit the precise date, they still acknowledge 2005 as the wedding year, underscoring the broad consensus around the January ceremony ^[5].

3. Engagement timing and family timeline that follow the wedding

Sources indicate the engagement occurred in 2004, with public proposals reported around that year and a formal wedding in early 2005; this sequence is consistent across timelines compiled in later years ^{[1] [6]}. The couple’s only child together, Barron Trump, was born in March 2006, a fact cited in multiple profiles that link their marriage, first lady tenure, and family chronology into a continuous public timeline ^{[1] [2]}. The post-wedding timeline—engagement, high-profile reception, and the birth of Barron—forms a tightly corroborated sequence that is supported by media coverage at the time and later biographical summaries.

4. Areas of dispute, omitted context, and source framing

Discrepancies across accounts center on specifics of the initial meeting venue and small anecdotal details, not on the year of meeting or the wedding date; Melania’s own retrospective descriptions sometimes name the Kit-Kat Club and September 1998, while other contemporaneous accounts cite a Paolo Zampolli-hosted event—both place the encounter within New York’s fashion scene in 1998 ^{[2] [1] [5]}. Some profiles emphasize political or image shifts in Melania’s life later on, which can shift narrative focus away from precise early-dating details; such framing choices reveal agenda-driven emphases—celebrating celebrity spectacle, scrutinizing political roles, or highlighting personal memoirs—without altering the core factual timeline ^{[5] [4]}.

5. Bottom line and recommended primary references for confirmation

The strongest and most consistent factual claims are that Donald Trump and Melania Knauss met in New York in 1998 and married on January 22, 2005, at Bethesda-by-the-Sea with a Mar-a-Lago reception, with son Barron born in March 2006; these points are corroborated by wedding reports, contemporaneous coverage, and compiled timelines ^{[6] [4] [1]}. For readers seeking primary contemporaneous confirmation, consult the 2005 wedding coverage and anniversary retrospectives cited here, which provide photographed and reported documentation; memoir excerpts and later interviews offer personal color but should be read as complementary rather than contradictory to the documented dates ^{[7] [2]}.