Scott Keller Sanders and Peter Scott Wilson were married Dec. 17 at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau in New York. Angel L. Lopez, a staff member of the New York City Clerk’s Office, officiated.
Mr. Sanders (left), 55, is an interior designer with offices in New York and Palm Beach, Fla. He graduated from Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio and received an associate’s degree in interior design from Parsons School of Design.
He is the son of Shirley A. Sanders and Charles I. Sanders of Piqua, Ohio.
Mr. Wilson, 63, retired as a partner in the New York law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he was a member of the mergers and acquisitions practice. He graduated from McGill University in Montreal and received a law degree from Harvard.
He is a son of Marie K. Wilson of New York and Donald J. Wilson of Santa Fe, N.M.
It was hardly love at first sight in 2004 when the couple met at Hell, a bar in the meatpacking district known for having a vintage-looking jukebox with an eclectic selection.
“I was out with one of my best friends,” Mr. Wilson said. This friend knew the friend accompanying Mr. Sanders that night. “I thought Scott was cute, and started talking to him.”
They exchanged numbers, and a week later Mr. Wilson asked Mr. Sanders to see “Wicked,” which had just opened on Broadway.
“Peter was very sweet, and very smart, but I wasn’t ready to settle down,” Mr. Sanders said. “It didn’t connect. There were no sparks.”
Mr. Wilson could quickly sense that, and they went their separate ways.
“You know when people are going through the motions,” Mr. Wilson said, but a year later after they ran into each other in the beach town Fire Island Pines on Long Island, Mr. Wilson decided to try again, asking Mr. Sanders out to dinner in the West Village.
“It was pleasant enough, but he still wasn’t looking for a relationship,” Mr. Wilson said.
In July 2006 that seemed to change when Mr. Wilson ran into Mr. Sanders at an Empire State Pride Agenda tea dance in the Hamptons.
“I was really happy to see him,” said Mr. Sanders, who accepted an invitation to what he thought would be a dinner party at Mr. Wilson’s house a couple of weeks later.
“It was his birthday,” said Mr. Sanders, who recalled thinking, “Oh no, I didn’t bring a present.”
He decided to set things right by asking Mr. Wilson if he could take him out to dinner to celebrate. “That was a good sign,” Mr. Wilson said.
A couple of weeks later, they had a romantic dinner at Wallsé, an Austrian restaurant in the West Village.
“We had a corner table,” Mr. Sanders said. “It was very special. Very relaxed. It clicked.”
After that dinner they saw each other a lot that summer in the Hamptons, and then subsequently in New York. “That was a nice start,’’ Mr. Wilson said. “I just sensed he was at a different place.”
Five years later they adopted a dachshund, Bailey, and are now building a house in the Hamptons on a bluff six stories above Gardiners Bay. “The part I love about this, is that we’re creating a home together,” Mr. Sanders said.
