Mary Beth Taylor bought Emma Hutchinson a hot dog on the night they met, in 2018, at a Knicks game in Madison Square Garden. The two had gone to the basketball game with a larger group and spent the whole game chatting with each other over someone else’s lap.
They learned that they each shared a passion for “Real Housewives” and going to events at the Garden (Ms. Taylor prefers Billy Joel concerts, while Ms. Hutchinson is a sports fan). But when it emerged that Ms. Taylor (left), was a graduate of Texas Christian University, and was also a bit younger, Ms. Hutchinson saw a dead end.
“I’m Jewish and so I thought she must have been really religious, so I kind of wrote it off: ‘Too bad she’s younger than me and super Christian,’ all things I just made up,” she said. “We went our separate ways and I thought I would probably never see her again.”
Soon after, though, Ms. Hutchinson, now 31, mentioned to a mutual friend that she had wished she had asked for Ms. Taylor’s number — perhaps to send a Venmo payment for the hot dog. And then she stumbled across Ms. Taylor’s profile on a dating app.
“I sent her a message that she likes to say was very dorky,” Ms. Hutchinson said.
“She said, ‘Oh, I see you’re here,’” Ms. Taylor said. “We started messaging.”
They arranged to go out, but even before they got to the date, Ms. Taylor, 30, found herself invited by a mutual friend to a surprise party that Ms. Hutchinson was hosting.
So she asked Ms. Hutchinson if it would be OK if she attended the event. Being a Southerner, she said, “I’m very into RSVPing. And she was like, ‘Oh, sure.’”
The two shared their first kiss that night, and then the following night, got together again for wine and “Real Housewives.”
They did end up keeping their planned “first date.” Though by the time it arrived, both were already smitten.
“I fell in love with her pretty quickly, I guess,” said Ms. Hutchinson, who is a business analyst consultant for Appirio, an information technology consultancy. She graduated and received a master’s degree in public administration from N.Y.U. “She is not afraid of what other people think about her — it’s this interesting mix of she’s very well-mannered and polite, but also not afraid to speak her mind and be who she is.”
Ms. Taylor, who is an account manager at CaaStle, a New York company that provides a clothing rental services platform, said that it was soon evident to her that the two were a match.
“We have a really good time together no matter what,” she said. “She seamlessly fit into my life.”
In 2019, the two moved in together, and in January, they were engaged. Both their mothers met them in New York in February to begin planning a wedding for March 2021, but when the coronavirus pandemic hit, the couple called off all those plans, and, in June, fled New York for the Rocky Mountains.
On July 18, the couple were married in the backyard of the condominium that Ms. Taylor’s family owns in Steamboat Springs, Colo. The Rev. Babs M. Meairs, an Episcopal priest and the wife of Ms. Taylor’s grandfather, the Rev. Edward L. Busch, also an Episcopal priest, officiated. There were about eight guests, with 40 or so watching over a video link.
“We just decided since we’re out here and it is so beautiful and we have family, we’d just go ahead and get married,” Ms. Taylor said. “It takes the pressure off.”
