Sidra Saba Zaidi and Sean Michael Galvin were married June 22 at Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, Alaska. Benjamin Rutkin-Becker, a friend of the couple who received temporary permission from the state of Alaska to officiate, led the ceremony.
The couple met while at N.Y.U., from which each received a law degree.
The bride, who is 29 and taking her husband’s name, is an associate specializing in health care law at Epstein Becker Green, a law firm in New York. She graduated from Loyola University Chicago and received a master’s degree in human rights studies from Columbia.
She is a daughter of Dr. Tabassum Saba and Dr. Navid Zaidi of Joplin, Mo. They are physicians at Freeman Hospital in Joplin. Her father is a pulmonologist; her mother is a psychiatrist. The bride’s parents also founded the Islamic Society of Joplin in 2006.
The groom, 25, is a litigation associate at Goodwin in New York. He received a dual undergraduate degree in economics and mathematics from the University of Portland.
He is a son of Alyse Galvin and Patrick Galvin of Anchorage. The groom’s mother, a former candidate for Alaska’s at-large congressional seat, is a founder of Great Alaska Schools, which works for public education funding. His father is the former commissioner of revenue for the state of Alaska, and is the chief commercial officer and general counsel of Great Bear Petroleum in Anchorage.
In June 2016, Ms. Zaidi, who had gone on a steady run of “extremely bad dates,” decided to organize a “girls’ night out” at a karaoke bar in Manhattan with one specific request attached to her invitation: no men allowed.
“I was done with the dating scene,” she said. “I was mostly meeting people on dating apps, and going on first dates every week in the hope of meeting someone special and getting married and starting a family.”
Much to Ms. Zaidi’s chagrin, one of her friends brought along three men to the celebration. The friend, sensing a potential connection, introduced Ms. Zaidi to Mr. Galvin, who was born and raised in Anchorage and also happened to be one of Ms. Zaidi’s classmates at N.Y.U. Ms. Zaidi and Mr. Galvin had many mutual friends and had once even studied for finals together.
“Although we both liked each other, neither of us were brave enough to make the first move,” Ms. Zaidi said.
They began a conversation at the karaoke bar. Ms. Zaidi told Mr. Galvin that she was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and immigrated to the United States at a young age. She also told him that she had attended N.Y.U. as a Root-Tilden-Kern Scholar and Filomen M. D’Agostino Scholar for Women and Children, and that while in graduate school at Columbia, she volunteered in Nairobi, Kenya, and was an author of a study on the sexual and reproductive health of Kenyan women who have sex with women.
“She was different from other people I had met in law school,” Mr. Galvin said. “She had an unguarded nature that made it incredibly easy to open up with her, and she wasn’t afraid of laughing loudly and often.”
Ms. Zaidi was also intrigued by Mr. Galvin. “I had never met anyone from Alaska, and the immediate image that came to my mind was of a lumberjack,” she said. “But as I began talking to Sean, he came across to me as a very sophisticated and worldly person.”
Ms. Zaidi’s matchmaking friend interrupted their conversation and suggested that Ms. Zaidi and Mr. Galvin sing a duet, and they obliged by choosing Billy Joel’s “She’s Always a Woman.”
Unbeknown to Ms. Zaidi, Mr. Galvin was a bluegrass musician. “When I heard his incredible voice against this live piano, and saw the way he effortlessly performed in front of the crowd, my heart melted and I decided that I was ready to open up to someone again,” Ms. Zaidi said.
Three weeks later, they had their first date in Central Park. “Over the last few years we have developed a mutual respect and trust,” Mr. Galvin said. “Sidra is the most empathetic and passionate person I know — she helps fill my blind spots.”
