Patrick David Davies-Griffith and Jonathan Edward Eifert had it with their local dating scenes in 2017 — Mr. Eifert in Philadelphia and Mr. Davies-Griffith in New York — so each extended his dating radius to the 100-mile limit on the Bumble app.
“Hey man, Handsome pix and nice to see we matched,” said Mr. Eifert, when he first reached out to him in May, and shared his Instagram handle.
Mr. Davies-Griffith, intrigued by Mr. Eifert’s Instagram photos and several thousand followers, was cordially flirty.
“Likewise Jonathan,” said Mr. Davies-Griffith, who grew up in Cairns, Australia, in Far North Queensland. “You have a bit of a modeling shoot going in your pix.”
On May 30, 2017, while Mr. Eifert, originally from Lancaster, Pa., was in New York to work on a classical music festival, they met around noon at the Time Warner Center.
Mr. Eifert, 33, owns Gold Sound Media, a marketing company, and Classical Post, a publishing platform, both focusing on classical music. He graduated cum laude from Cairn University in Langhorne Manor, Pa., and received a master’s degree in cultural policy and management from City, University of London.
“We got takeaway coffee and tea and walked over to Central Park,” said Mr. Davies-Griffith, 30, who had wowed Mr. Eifert with his navy Dolce & Gabbana suit as he bounded up the escalator after a mad dash crosstown from KPMG, the accounting firm, where he is a senior manager. He graduated from the University of Queensland and is a chartered accountant and certified public accountant.
“What a sight,” Mr. Eifert recalled thinking, and stood there in a white polo and a huge smile that dazzled Mr. Davies-Griffith.
They chatted about an hour on a park bench, and before Mr. Eifert ducked into a nearby subway, Mr. Davies-Griffith gave him a peck on the cheek.
“I never kiss on the first date,” said Mr. Eifert, who loved it, but was a bit surprised.
Mr. Eifert, in no rush, did not reach out when he was back in town, but agreed to a second date on home turf in mid-June when Mr. Davies-Griffith was en route to a Delaware music festival.
As they chatted over coffee at La Colombe in Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, their eyes locked.
“I paused in that moment,” Mr. Davies-Griffith said. “I’m wondering if he’s feeling this.”
“Oh, he’s the one,” Mr. Eifert recalled thinking.
On his way home (really, a detour) the next day, Mr. Davies-Griffith stopped by Mr. Eifert’s apartment. They learned they were on the same page about children and marriage, and then began speaking everyday, and set weekends aside for each other.
On July 4, while Mr. Eifert visited him in New York, they officially agreed to become “boyfriend and boyfriend,” and a couple of weeks later Mr. Davies-Griffith invited him home to Australia.
“I wanted to pace myself, but it didn’t work that way,” said Mr. Eifert.
On Aug. 15, after 31 hours, he landed at Cairns airport, surrounded by rainforest, and greeted by Mr. Davies-Griffith, who arrived a few days earlier. After Mr. Eifert’s nap, they went to dinner with Mr. Davies-Griffith’s parents, who took off the next day for a vacation in Sydney.
Mr. Eifert enjoyed the lush backyard with parrots, cockatoos and kookaburras and snorkeling nearby in the Great Barrier Reef, and a few days later they joined Mr. Davies-Griffith’s parents in Sydney.
In February 2018, Mr. Eifert moved into Mr. Davies-Griffith’s studio in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood (they eventually moved to Connecticut), and they spent their first July 4 weekend in Nantucket, Mass., which became a tradition.
On July 4, 2019, they proposed to each other there — Mr. Davies over a champagne picnic breakfast by Brant Point Lighthouse and later that day, Mr. Eifert proposed in a secluded park at Polpis Harbor.
They had planned to get married in May 2020 at Topping Rose House, an events space in Bridgehampton, N.Y., with 80 guests. When the coronavirus shut down the world, they moved the date, though kept the location.
On June 5, Bettina Yiannakourou, affiliated with the Celebrant Foundation and Institute, officiated there before 24 guests.
“We wanted to start the next chapter as husband and husband with a child in the next year or two,” Mr. Davies-Griffith said, as they discussed on their third date.
