Kara Ann Kaufman and David Michael Fisher are to be married Sept. 1 at Jacob’s Pillow, a performance space in Becket, Mass. Rabbi Getzel Davis is to officiate.
The bride, 29, was until last month a research associate at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Mass., from which she received a master’s degree in public policy. She graduated from Brown.
She is the daughter of Linda S. Kaufman and Kenneth M. Kaufman of Chevy Chase, Md. The bride’s father is a lawyer in private practice in Washington, where he specializes in copyright and entertainment law. Her mother, who worked in New York, retired as a senior account executive at the National Basketball Association before becoming a stay-at-home parent.
The groom, also 29, works in Boston as a data analyst for Boston Public Schools. He graduated from Oberlin College and received a master’s degree in education from Stanford.
He is a son of Ellen R. Fisher and Reuben Fisher of Newton, Mass. The groom’s mother is a visual artist and the director of Newton Open Studios, an association that displays the artwork of local artists throughout Newton. His father is a computer software engineer for Constant Contact, an online marketing company in Waltham, Mass.
Ms. Kaufman and Mr. Fisher met on a retreat in the summer of 2011 for undergraduate Udall Scholars in Tucson. Both had just finished their junior years in college.
Though Ms. Kaufman said that “David seemed like a very kind and sweet person,” and Mr. Fisher said that “Kara seemed super smart and really eloquent,” both were seeing other people at the time, so their meeting was brief.
Two years later, they were back in each other’s orbit as Ms. Kaufman moved to Boston to start a new job and emailed Mr. Fisher, she said, “to let him know that I was in town and that I wanted to reconnect.”
Though both were still dating other people, they formed a friendship that grew deeper with each and every Friday night Shabbat gathering, where they sang, ate and prayed together.
“He was someone who was kind and wonderful and a great listener,” Ms. Kaufman said. “We also shared many of the same values, goals and dreams.”
By late summer 2014, they were taking long strolls together around Jamaica Pond in Boston, where they often watched the sun set while sharing stories about growing up in a deep-rooted Jewish faith.
Ms. Kaufman told Mr. Fisher that her great-great-grandfather was Sholom Aleichem, the Yiddish author, who wrote the stories “Fiddler on the Roof” is based upon, and he told her that his grandfather Milton Einbinder was the engineer who oversaw the centennial restoration of the Statue of Liberty.
Mr. Fisher broke off his previous relationship in June 2014, and began trying to start a new one with Ms. Kaufman.
“I felt completely comfortable in her presence,” Mr. Fisher said. “She was someone I could say anything to with the utmost confidence, someone with whom I could share my truest feelings.”
So weeks later on one of their strolls, Mr. Fisher slowed his pace, turned toward Ms. Kaufman and shared how he truly felt about her. “Before that, she had been delightfully oblivious to my overtures,” Mr. Fisher said, laughing.
Though Ms. Kaufman appreciated Mr. Fisher’s honesty, she was not sure if she felt the same romantic connection, and asked for a little time to think it over.
By November 2014, Ms. Kaufman became unattached, and when she returned from a Thanksgiving break she had taken in her hometown, Chevy Chase, she had made “a firm decision” about turning a romantic corner with Mr. Fisher. She told him as much during yet another stroll, this one ending on her doorstep, where they shared what Ms. Kaufman described as “a very sweet first kiss.”
“At that point,” she said, “I fully realized that David was the piece of the puzzle that had been missing from my life.”
