First Love is an American soap opera which ran on NBC Daytime from July 5, 1954 to December 30, 1955. The series aired at 4:15 p.m. EST, between Golden Windows and Concerning Miss Marlowe. Although the show had a strong fan following, at the time NBC had little use for developing any of their daytime shows and canceled First Love after a year and a half. Many cast members such as Patricia Barry, Val Dufour and Rosemary Prinz went on to become long-running daytime stars. Created by Adrian Samish and written by Manya Starr, the series centered around jet engineer Zach James and his difficult marriage to Laurie James. Due to being neglected as a child, Zach was obsessed with building a name for himself. Laurie tried to understand him but was unable to help him deal with his problems, as he went on trial for the murder of an aviatrix he may have been having an affair with. The show became known chiefly for a major blooper early in its run. A Friday cliffhanger involved Zach seeing his friend Chris crash his plane. Zach ran to tell Chris' wife Amy, "Chris cracked up the plane." In his rush, Dufour blurted out, "Chris crapped", then abruptly added, "...on the plane." Patricia Barry began to giggle. When the camera cut to a "bereaved" Prinz, she was shaking with laughter. Supposedly NBC nearly fired all three actors, but changed their minds after fans wrote in praising them for the scene. In 2003 Prinz denied such a scene ever made it to the air.

Dominic works round the clock: nights making biscotti for his family's bakery in a working-class Italian neighborhood in Pittsburgh, then days downtown where he's a specialist in firing people at a company that negotiates mergers. He's thrown for a loop with he learns that Bella, an elderly neighbor who's his family's closest friend, has but a few months to live. All her life, she's saved money in coffee cans for her daughter, Lucca's, wedding, but Lucca is off in foreign lands, initially as a Peace Corps volunteer, and doesn't need a man. Dominic vows to bring Lucca home and convince her to marry him to fulfill Bella's most fervent wish. What will Lucca say?