A heartfelt smile can be infectious, and for Anna Clare Spelman and Peter Prix, it commenced their love story.
Ms. Spelman and Mr. Prix had been living in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for less than a year when they joined a local volleyball club. During a game in May 2013, they spotted each other on opposite sides of the court and were “intrigued by the other person’s laugh and smile,” Ms. Spelman said.
They would look for the other at subsequent games, but didn’t see each other again until three weeks later. The power had gone out in town that night, so instead of playing volleyball, the club went out to dinner. Ms. Spelman and Mr. Prix sat across from each other and talked for three hours.
It was the night before Ms. Spelman’s birthday, and she saw an opportunity: “I tried to casually invite everyone to my birthday party, but just turned to Peter and was like, ‘So what’s your phone number?’” she said.
He accepted the invitation, shared his number and celebrated her 25th birthday along with her non-volleyball friends. Three days later, they had their first date at a local movie theater, which, according to Mr. Prix, was “a living room with four couches and a pirated movie on a big screen.”
“But you would get a movie ticket,” he said.
“And popcorn,” Ms. Spelman added.
“Both of us were incredibly nervous,” Mr. Prix said, but the date went so well they started seeing each other four to fives times a week from then on.
They would ride on his motorcycle around the city, “which is a really common pastime” in Cambodia, she said. They also worked in the same area of the city, so they would meet each other during their lunch breaks. At the time, she was working for Racha, a women’s reproductive health nonprofit organization. He was a United Nations coordination officer.
In August 2015, Ms. Spelman moved to North Carolina for graduate school, and Mr. Prix relocated to Qatar for work.
Ms. Spelman graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with bachelor’s degrees in Spanish and women and gender studies, and has a master’s degree in visual journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mr. Prix graduated from the Kempten University of Applied Sciences in Germany, with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and economics. He has a master’s degree in development economics from Euromed Management in Marseilles, France.
For the next few years, the couple lived in several cities — sometimes together, sometimes long distance — including Washington, where Ms. Spelman is from. Mr. Prix is from Krumbach, Germany.
“We love to explore different places, and we couldn’t quite figure out where we wanted to have a base,” she said. (As a testament to their peripatetic nature, Mr. Prix picked up three of the five languages he speaks just from traveling: French, Indonesian and Cambodian.)
Finally, the couple settled on Istanbul, and moved there in July 2019. Ms. Spelman, 34, is now an independent documentary filmmaker and was recently a producer and cinematographer of “Rising Up in the Heartland.” Mr. Prix, 35, a U.N. partnership officer, travels around Southeast Asia for his role and works remotely from Turkey for several months of the year.
In December 2022, the couple spent a month in Indonesia where they talked at length about what marriage means for them. “We’ve been together for so long, and we’re so happy with our relationship,” he said. “We didn’t want the marriage to change anything about that.”
They proposed to each other on Dec. 30. Less than three months later, on March 11, they were married in Sedona, Ariz., which is a “sanctuary,” Ms. Spelman said, for the couple when they are in Arizona. Her parents live in Tempe.
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There were only a handful of guests at their outdoor ceremony: Ms. Spelman’s parents, the couple’s dog, Hans-Jörg, and a photographer. Ms. Spelman’s father, Jon Spelman, who had been ordained by Universal Life Church, officiated the wedding.
After the ceremony, they had dinner at Mesa Grill Sedona. A couple celebrating their anniversary at a nearby table approached the newlyweds and paid for their meal.
Ms. Spelman and Mr. Prix also plan on having parties in Turkey in September and in the United States in December to celebrate their marriage — and 10 years together — with family and friends.
“I was excited from the moment I first saw her play volleyball, smiling,” Mr. Prix said. “I still have the picture in my mind of Anna standing across the volleyball court.”
