Carsen Alexa Zarin and Florent Ahmed Groberg were married Nov. 17 at the Willard InterContinental in Washington. Julian Zarin, the brother of the bride who became a Universal Life minister for the occasion, officiated.
The bride, who is 28 and will be taking her husband’s name, is the director of marketing for Capture2, a government contracting software start-up company in Washington. She graduated from George Washington University.
She is the daughter of Lisa Orden-Zarin and Larry Peter Zarin of St. Louis. The bride’s father retired as the chief marketing officer in St. Louis for Express Scripts. Her mother, also retired, founded and was the chief executive in St. Louis for College Bound, St. Louis, a nonprofit organization that helps disadvantaged students in St. Louis attend and graduate from college.
The groom, 35, is the chief of staff at Boeing Commercial Airplanes in Seattle for the Boeing Company. He graduated from the University of Maryland, from which he also received a master’s degree in management.
He is a former Army captain serving with the Fourth Brigade, Fourth Infantry Division out of Fort Carson, Colo. He received the Medal of Honor in December 2015, awarded by President Barack Obama, for acts of valor during a suicide bomber attack in Afghanistan in August 2010, during which four members of his brigade were killed, and he suffered a lower left limb injury.
He is the son of Klara F. Groberg and Larry E. Groberg of Supply, N.C. The groom’s mother, who is retired, was a writer for Paris Match magazine in Paris. His father, who worked in Washington, also retired, was a senior vice president for international sales for Motorola.
Ms. Zarin and Mr. Groberg met at a restaurant in Washington in October 2014. They were each invited to a large social gathering there by the same mutual friend.
At the time, Mr. Groberg, who lived in nearby Bethesda, Md., was receiving treatment for his war injury at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he had undergone more than 30 surgeries over two years. He had not yet been retired by the Army.
Ms. Zarin, who was living in Washington, was sitting outside on the patio and dropped her cellphone by accident at precisely the same time as Mr. Groberg walked past her.
He picked up the phone and while handing it back thought to himself, “Oh man, she’s hot.”
Ms. Zarin was thinking much the same. “I thought he was very handsome,” she said. “I hoped to meet him when we went inside.”
As it turned out, she never got the chance. When Mr. Groberg walked out the door to run an errand, Ms. Zarin thought he had gone home, and she soon departed, more than a bit disappointed.
But the next day, Mr. Groberg called, explaining that he had returned, and when he didn’t see her, asked their mutual friend for her number. Two days later, they went on a first date to a French restaurant in Washington.
“I found him to be very smart, very gregarious and at the same time, very warm,” Ms. Zarin said.
Mr. Groberg liked what he found as well. “She was beautiful and super sweet,” he said. “She was also very funny, and we had some great conversations.”
They became an instant item, and were dating for 14 months when Mr. Groberg received a call from Washington telling him that he had been chosen as a Medal of Honor recipient.
“It was a very emotional ceremony,” said Mr. Groberg, who donated his medal to Fort Carson, where it remains on display.
The couple were engaged in December 2016, and in 2017, they embarked on a U.S.O. tour to Afghanistan, Iraq, Abu Dhabi, Spain and Poland.
Mr. Groberg, this time with Ms. Zarin by his side, returned to the Forward Operating Base in Afghanistan where he had been stationed at the time of the deadly attack. Together, they paid homage to the memorial that stands in remembrance of the men lost that day.
“I always try and find a positive in every negative situation,” Mr. Groberg said. “As a result of that horrible day, I was in a place where I met my soul mate, and I can’t think of anything more positive that has happened to me since.”
