As Alexis Major walked down the aisle to a violinist’s rendition of John Legend’s “All of Me,” she could see her beloved, Karim Butler, seated beneath the ceremonial white floral arch, crying. She settled into the chair across from him, wiped the tears from his face, and the traditional Muslim wedding ceremony commenced. From the…
To James Arthur Dolce, the possibility of crossing paths with Ashley Lee Tyrner was, as he put it, a “one in a million situation.” After all, they lived 3,000 miles apart. In reality, however, the two were orbiting the same circles before they even met. They discovered that they had each been dining at the…
As someone who worked in public relations, Elise Audie Nikolaisen was amazed by Bailey Wright Carlin’s “ability to make things go viral,” she said, on the social media platform then known as Twitter. Celebrities like Chrissy Teigen would comment on his posts. The website Delish even reported on a fruit-throwing debate that he began online.…
Jonathan Randall Kay, a foodie with a sweet tooth, could not resist. As soon as Marc Elliot Rofsky mentioned during their correspondence over social media that he was going to Portugal the next day, Mr. Kay suggested he try the flaky, buttery Portuguese egg tarts, or pastéis de nata at Pastéis de Belém 1837 in…
In 2012, Tinder introduced its swipe feature. Other apps followed suit, making the feature ubiquitous, and matchmaking was never the same. And now, 12 years later, people are tired: tired of transactional swiping; monotonous getting-to-know-you first dates; and conversations that fizzle out in days. Many people, young people in particular, are open about wanting the…
Kanako Abe noticed a cute guy with “mysterious, deep-set eyes” on an Amtrak train headed from New York City to Montreal in March 2012. John Christopher Seemer took note of Ms. Abe, too. But neither spoke a word to the other — that is, until their return trip six days later, on March 17, 2012.…
On a July morning in 2022, Shira Avia Zilberstein had a bone scan, a routine test when dealing with Crohn’s colitis, a disease in which the colon is inflamed. Afterward, she and her boyfriend of nearly a year, Emmanuel Altmann Cantor, swam in the Mystic Lakes, in Boston’s northwestern suburbs. Later that night, they went…
Edgar Giovanny Angel and Dianna Guadalupe Mateos can’t quite remember if they danced to a merengue or a cumbia song when, as 15-year-olds, they were paired as dance partners for a quinceañera in 2012. They do, however, remember hitting it off during rehearsals. “Edgar’s cousin was my best friend during high school,” said Ms. Mateos,…
Tyler Charles Eyre believes he never would have met Yasmin Khorram, whom he considers his soul mate, had her family not fled Iran four decades ago. But it was a tragic turn of events that precipitated that move. As the Iranian Revolution was taking place in 1979, Ms. Khorram’s maternal grandfather, a top military commander…
When Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India abruptly changed her country’s constitution in 1971 and abolished the Privy Purse, a government allowance for the country’s former princely rulers, she also moved to nationalize their storied treasuries. Among the maharajahs, nizams and nabobs that once ruled the subcontinent, this set off a frenzy as they scurried…