Though Dr. Jennifer Berman devoted her life to urology and studying women’s sexual health, she made room for “divine organization.” A 2018 “Oprah” episode on manifesting love inspired her to scribble down traits of an ideal mate, even how he would look, “although that wasn’t a big part of it,” she said.
After a high-conflict divorce in 2005, she had languished on dating sites, but still hoped to find love. Eric Baker was green to online dating when he joined the League a year after his divorce and was wowed by Dr. Berman’s “showstopping” beauty. He was unaware that Dr. Berman, 56, had been a host of the TV show “The Doctors,” or had written best-selling books on intimacy. Dr. Berman preferred it that way.
“Just because I am a sex expert and I help patients medically, does not mean that I’m like swinging from the chandeliers, which is what men immediately think,” she said. “So I purposely tried to avoid that.”
Dr. Berman felt goose bumps as they uncovered various compatibilities before a kiss in Mr. Baker’s car, at the end of a first date in October 2018. “I feel like I manifested him,” she said, adding that Mr. Baker had all the traits she desired in a mate.
“There was a divine organization happening to make us connect on that site,” she said. One that hadn’t occurred, though, when their families lived in New York’s Upper East Side, or when they overlapped for two years at Boston University, where Mr. Baker, 53, graduated and Dr. Berman went to medical school.
Dr. Berman was impressed by Mr. Baker’s traditional values, and thought it was “cool” when he asked her to lunch five days after their first date. “I’m a doctor, I don’t even eat lunch,” she said.
The doctor had a blind spot in music, and Mr. Baker, a managing partner in music at Primary Wave Talent Management, became her guide.
Dr. Berman accompanied Mr. Baker to a performance by his client Toots and the Maytals and Mr. Baker enjoyed watching her dance. “Every time I see her dance, it reminds me of the first time I saw her: not caring, just being goofy, it’s hysterical,” he said.
In the summer of 2019, Mr. Baker asked Dr. Berman’s father, Dr. Irwin Berman, for permission to marry his daughter. The elder Dr. Berman was ill and relieved by the request, the couple said. He died weeks later.
A family vacation in the Bahamas at the end of 2019 blended Dr. Berman’s now 18-year-old daughter Isabelle and 21-year-old son Max with Mr. Baker’s 14-year-old son Levi. “It was seamless,” Dr. Berman said.
Her children would come to embrace Mr. Baker so tightly that Dr. Berman’s daughter called Mr. Baker first with news of her college acceptance. Dr. Berman’s son and Mr. Baker bonded over the Grateful Dead.
Mr. Baker proposed in February 2020, in the cold, outside Dr. Berman’s childhood home on the Upper East Side. But he had placed a guard on a too-large ring that was now too tight to get over Dr. Berman’s knuckle. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is a sign!,’” Dr. Berman said. “Freaking out.”
The guard was eventually loosened by Mr. Baker and they celebrated at Elio’s on the Upper East Side, where both their families used to eat.
Mr. Baker moved in last summer, and as the world slowed down, their worlds fused, making whittling down a list for their 50 guest wedding, a challenge.
They wed on June 19, at the Sea Island Beach Club, on Sea Island in Georgia, where Dr. Berman’s father previously had a home. Her parents moved to the area during her teens, and years ago her father helped recruit Rabbi Rachael Bregman to the local synagogue, not knowing then she would one day perform the service at his funeral and officiate his daughter’s wedding.
Mr. Baker let Dr. Berman select the band, and only requested two songs. “It is so painful for me, because if I can micromanage it, I would,” he said.
Exile’s “Kiss You All Over” had been the couple’s song, but wouldn’t play until later in the reception.
“That can’t really be a first dance song; Jen and I don’t have that kind of rhythm,” Mr. Baker said. Instead they swayed to “Shining Star” by The Manhattans. Next month the couple will honeymoon in Bora Bora. Doctor’s orders.
