How Garrison Anne Rufa and Theodore Joseph Lavoie didn’t meet before they did is a mystery to them both. The two were avid snowboarders growing up in New England, which has a tight-knit snowboarding community.
Ms. Rufa was so involved in the sport that when she was 15 her family relocated from Little Silver, N.J., where she grew up, to Chester, Vt., for her to train at Okemo Mountain School in Ludlow, Vt., and to compete.
Mr. Lavoie spent years as a professional snowboarder, riding for Eastern Boarder, an East Coast skate and snowboard supplier, and appearing in a handful of snowboard videos and magazines. “We have friends and acquaintances in common,” Mr. Lavoie said. “It’s crazy that we never crossed paths. We potentially were both on the mountain the same summer.” (Snowboarders and skiers sometimes “chase the snow,” Ms. Rufa said, by heading to Mount Hood in Oregon and other West Coast mountains in the summer.)
The two finally did connect on Tinder on Aug. 6, 2020. “Ted’s first swipe ever,” Ms. Rufa said. “We exchanged phone numbers immediately.”
