Dating Directions: Ohio Matchmakers Believe in Your Ability to Find a Fairy-Tale Love — And They Can Make It Happen

The Short Version: Based in Columbus, Ohio, Dating Directions is a professional matchmaking firm run by a tight-knit team with over 30 years of experience behind them. The company’s personalized dating services, online dating assistance, image consulting, and dating coaching help singles find that special someone with more precision and less effort. If you’re looking for your fairy-tale ending and are starting to feel frustrated by the search — you can turn to the compassionate matchmakers at Dating Directions for the guidance you need to get in a relationship. “We are dating experts,” said Elizabeth Cobey Piper, a certified dating coach and matchmaker. “We support clients in every way possible throughout the dating process.”

Singles on the road to love have many different vehicles to choose from — you can zip to a date by using a dating site, or you can cruise through your options by going to a bar or a club. You can take any route that suits you and still reach your ultimate destination: a relationship.

It may seem old-fashioned, but many of today’s hard-working and well-educated singles choose to hire a professional matchmaking team to guide them along the way. Why? Because matchmakers are the limousines of dating services. They provide that added comfort, security, and efficiency to get singles where they want to go in style.

“We’re more than matchmakers,” said Dating Directions CEO Susie Hardesty. “We’re strategists.”

In 1992, Susie Hardesty answered a help-wanted ad for a local dating service called Great Expectations because she wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. She spent the next 10 years learning the ropes and mastering the matchmaking strategies — and then she co-founded her own boutique matchmaking firm in central Ohio.

Dating Directions is the culmination of decades of experience working with singles on a personal level. Susie told us part of her job is to see past what her clients say they want and to understand what they need. “People don’t know what they want because they haven’t met that person yet,” she said, noting that personal growth is a major part of dating. “As they go on dates, hopefully, they grow as people along the way and become the person they want to be.”

Sometimes singles are simply too busy or too run-down to search for a compatible date, and that’s where Dating Directions’ hands-on services can come in handy. The professional team of matchmakers offer personalized dating assistance for singles who feel let down by online dating or traditional dating avenues.

“We’re in the golden age of dating, but there are also complications and hazards along the way,” Susie said.

Professional dating coach and matchmaker Elizabeth Cobey-Piper admires Susie’s unbending optimism and shares her faith in the power of love. “We believe there’s someone out there for everyone,” she said, “and fairy tales happen every day.”

At Dating Directions, clients benefit from matchmaking, dating coaching, online dating assistance, image consulting, and singles events. You can sign up for any or all of the above services by filling out a matchmaking questionnaire and confidential profile. The firm’s full-service dating assistance is by no means one-size-fits-all. The matchmakers assess singles on an individual basis and decide which services would best serve which clients.

Matchmaker Elizabeth Cobey-Piper described Dating Directions as a high-end solution for relationship-minded singles.

Whether you’d like to attend a dating workshop or spruce up your online dating profile, you can turn to Dating Directions for proactive guidance in today’s dating scene. These services equip daters with the skills they need to hit it off online and in real life.

Of course, the team excels at matching clients up with unbelievable dates, so it’s more than likely your consultation will end with a matchmaker pointing you toward a potential love interest.

The matchmakers have zeroed in on six factors of compatibility that predict relationship success, and they teach these secrets to their clients to help them fosters fulfilling connections. “Over time, we found six predictors of dating success,” Elizabeth explained. “We use these six factors to help clients assess what is working in their search for love and what they can shift to become successful.”

Elizabeth and Susie have literally written the book on these six factors. “Matchmaker Secrets: The Six Predictors of Dating Success” explains how dating works using real-life stories and empowers readers to change their love lives for good!

Human intuition plays an important role in the matchmakers’ work as well. Every once in a while Susie just gets a sense about who will match well with whom, and she can be pretty forceful about her instincts. “Sometimes I get a little bold,” she told us with a chuckle. One time, she even called her shot with a 58-year-old teacher, who wasn’t ready to commit to anyone so soon after her husband’s death. Susie told the woman it was important to get some dating practice before she found her second chance at love.

“So I said, ‘When you’re done with these two dates, I’ll introduce you to your husband,'” Susie recalled. “And that happened. She married the third guy I matched her with.”

Talking to the Dating Directions team is like joining a family in their living room. They’re so open, warm, and friendly. The matchmakers work very closely together, and they’re quick to laugh and even quicker to support one another on a tough job. In our interview, we could tell the women enjoy each other’s company — they were practically finishing each other’s sentences as they chattered excitedly about their shared mission and vision.

From the outset, the Dating Directions team was a match made in heaven. It began over a decade ago when Elizabeth Cobey-Piper, known as the first dating coach in Ohio, met Susie, known as the first matchmaker in Ohio, through a mutual friend. They shared an instant connection because they both wanted to inspire singles to find love and saw how working together could make them more effective in that goal.

Matchmaker Luisa Canneto is a dedicated and dynamic member of the Dating Directions team.

Today, Dating Directions employs several experienced and passionate matchmakers and dating coaches, all of whom have been certified by the Matchmaking Institute. The all-woman staff combines their areas of expertise to match, coach, photograph, and guide clients as best they can.

Oftentimes, team members take on multiple roles in their zeal for getting things done and getting clients matched. For instance, Assistant Matchmaker Luisa Canneto is the team’s Communications Coordinator as well as their most proactive date headhunter. She scours Columbus for dates for her clients. “I’m shameless,” Luisa said with a laugh. “I’ll talk to people in line at Whole Foods.”

This remarkably close-knit team often offers relationship guidance to one another. In fact, Luisa actually credits Susie and Elizabeth for helping her take her future husband seriously even though he was less well-dressed and more nerdy than how she had imagined her partner. The dating experts encouraged the then 22-year-old dater to look beyond the surface and realize she was with someone who was loving, supportive, and made her happy. Elizabeth married the couple in 2015.

“We challenge people to be open,” Elizabeth said. “Because the love of your life isn’t a list of characteristics on a profile. About half the time, people fall in love with just the kind of person they expected, and we love it when that happens.”

Dating Directions is a results-oriented company. At their weekly date meetings, the matchmakers keep their focus on what they can do to help their clients fall in love. Their approach has led to many happy relationships and marriages. Over the years, the team has maintained an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau and boasted an 80% success rate for clients looking for long-term relationships. Furthermore, dozens of testimonials speak to the personal impact the matchmakers have on people’s lives.

Newlyweds Christen and Peter invited their matchmakers to their wedding and wrote in a testimonial, “Thanks for your efforts in getting us together. We never would have gotten together without you. That’s the best gift ever!”

“I don’t think either of us really thought that love this wonderful was possible, but, because of you, we are happily married!” — Brenda and Jon, former clients of Dating Directions

Elizabeth told us her very first client was tricky to match at first because he wanted someone with a petite figure. But, once she took Susie’s advice and connected him with a woman who had an hourglass shape, he found love at first sight. He’s been happily married since 2010.

The matchmakers take a vested interest in the love lives of their clients. They don’t simply throw people together and hope it works out — they rigorously discuss what each person wants and why they’d be a good fit for one another because they care about helping clients find true love.

“It’s exciting,” Luisa said. “We come in wondering what magic are we going to create in the world and who’s going to fall in love this week?”

What makes Dating Directions stand out as a matchmaking company is the love and effort the team puts into every match. They rely on human intuition and experience to pair up people who may not make sense on paper but just fit together. The time-tested matchmaking system goes beyond hard statistics and set algorithms to narrow down a single person’s search for that one true love.

“Our clients should never settle,” Luisa said emphatically. “Because we know they can have love, we encourage and coach them to be open to what their fairy tale looks like — so they allow love to come into their lives.”

“We see each client as an individual,” Elizabeth added. “We support them, and we do whatever it takes to help them.”