Colette Laurel Coleman and David John Davoli were married Dec. 23 at the Onondaga County Courthouse in Syracuse, N.Y. Brian F. DeJoseph, an associate justice of the appellate division, fourth department, officiated.
The bride, 38, is a writer and the director of business development at Zinc Learning Labs, an education technology company in New York. She is a former Los Angeles-based Teach For America corps member and international schoolteacher who was based in central Java, Indonesia. She graduated from Yale.
She is a daughter of Priscilla A. Laurel of Jersey City, N.J., and the late James L. Coleman, who lived in Rutherfordton, N.C.
The groom, 48, is the head of television for Bron Studios, a film, animation and television production and distribution company in New York and Los Angeles, with headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia. He graduated from Saint Bonaventure University and received a law degree from Brooklyn Law School.
He is a son of Joan Davoli of Syracuse and the late Joseph F. Davoli.
The couple met in April 2010 on a day that began with Mr. Davoli browsing OkCupid and sending a wink to the profile of a woman whose interests perfectly matched his.
“She had an affinity for yoga, travel and the arts,” Mr. Davoli said. “I really loved her pictures and the overall simplicity of her profile. She seemed to share many of my own interests, and was very spiritual as well.”
Mr. Davoli’s wink went unanswered and before he could delve much further into her profile, he realized it was time to go to his daily, 90-minute class at Jivamukti Yoga School in Manhattan.
Arriving a bit late, Mr. Davoli tiptoed in and around some 90 meditating bodies before finding a mat next to Ms. Coleman, who, despite just moving back to New York from Indonesia a few days before, seemed to recognize him.
“I wasn’t sure where I had seen him,” she said, “but I definitely knew the face, especially those light blue eyes.”
By the time their instructor had asked the class to do handstands against a wall, Mr. Davoli was already head over heels for Ms. Coleman.
“She was extremely beautiful,” he said. “I didn’t go there to pick anyone up, but I’m not going to say I wasn’t feeling her energy. In fact, I was beginning to feel an energy between the two of us.”
Ms. Coleman, who had been practicing yoga for more than a decade, was feeling a bit annoyed.
“I was there to do yoga,” she said, “not socialize.”
Then suddenly, it came to her. The man she had been downward dogging next to, whom she described as being “tall, dark and handsome,” was, in all likelihood, the same man who had winked at her online profile earlier that day.
When the class ended, Mr. Davoli went to the cafe on the premises, and Ms. Coleman retreated to the locker room with a towel around her neck and a bit of sleuthing on her mind.
She quickly reached for her cellphone and began reviewing photos of the man from the profile she had glanced at immediately after receiving the electronic wink.
“It was him, the same guy,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Moments later, Ms. Coleman, a vegan and animal rights activist who had trouble finding diet-compatible dates, walked into the cafe to witness another unbelievable sight.
“There he was,” she said, referring to Mr. Davoli, “eating a huge salad.”
Ms. Coleman went home and responded to the wink.
“Where do you practice yoga?” she asked.
When Mr. Davoli wrote “at Jivamukti,” she answered, “I think you were on the mat next to me tonight.”
Mr. Davoli dropped the phone.
“What were the odds,” he said. “A million, 10 million, 50 million to 1 — I was flying high.”
