The day after Samantha Schneider’s best friend died of complications from breast cancer, Sean Corley came into Ms. Schneider’s life.
His arrival, in September 2016, was no coincidence.
“Two months before I met Sean, my best friend told me that she heard all the nurses talking about the dating app Bumble,” said Ms. Schneider, 33, a research associate in the department of occupational medicine, epidemiology and prevention at Northwell Health in Great Neck, N.Y.
“She didn’t just suggest I go on Bumble, she insisted,” Ms. Schneider said, laughing. “It was more like a direct order.”
Ms. Schneider, who lived in Glenwood Landing, N.Y., fulfilled her promise, and swiped Mr. Corley into her world. (Mr. Corley, now 32, is from Commack, N.Y., and is an operations manager for Softheon, a software company in Stony Brook, N.Y., that provides data and maintenance to health care providers.)
Although they come from very different backgrounds — he is Irish Catholic and she is the child of a Chilean immigrant and a Jewish American of Russian descendant — they immediately hit it off with their shared love of the TV series “Doctor Who,” hiking, comics, tea, board games and black cats.
“One of the biggest things we have in common is that we are both nerds,” Mr. Corley said. “How many other women could I have found that enjoy eating octopus and getting dressed up as various characters for Comic Con events.”
They met at Cafe Buenos Aires in Huntington, N.Y., for what Ms. Schneider called “the best first date ever.”
“I could tell he was a compassionate man with a real sense of family,” she said. “He was also very handsome and had a great sense of humor.”
Mr. Corly was also not short on adjectives. “She was beautiful, intelligent and a great communicator,” he said. “But perhaps her greatest quality was how much she cared about other people.”
On the night of her best friend’s funeral, Ms. Schneider said she was feeling “quite upset and needed a shoulder to lean on.”
It was Mr. Corley’s shoulder she sought, and on the somber drive to his home, she wondered if he might have been thinking about her, or feeling her pain.
She knocked on his door and received her answer in the form of her favorite blueberry pie, from Briermere Farms in Riverhead, N.Y.
“I just thought that was such a caring and thoughtful thing to do,” Ms. Schneider said. “That was the very moment when I knew that Sean was the man I was going to marry.”
■ The couple were married March 14 at the Vineyards at Aquebogue in Aquebogue, N.Y. Rabbi Beth H. Klafter officiated.
■ The bride, who graduated from Hunter College, is the daughter of Irene Schneider of Glenwood Landing and Dr. Steven J. Schneider of Albertson, N.Y. . The bride’s father is a pediatric neurosurgeon and co-chief of the division of pediatric neurosurgery at Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y. He is also a partner in Long Island Neurosurgical Associates in New Hyde Park. Her mother is a senior physical therapist at Public School 993Q for the New York City Department of Education in Floral Park, Queens. The bride is also the stepdaughter of Marcelo Aspesi, a Manhattan-based master electrician.
■ The groom, who is the son of Patricia Corley and John J. Corley of Setauket, N.Y., graduated from Stony Brook University. The groom’s father is a partner in Krohmer-Corley Construction, a construction company based in Setauket. His mother, who is retired, was a school guidance counselor at Mount Sinai Middle School District in Mount Sinai, N.Y.
