“After that it was just date, date, date, date,” he said.
A few weeks later Ms. Stern accompanied him to a Persian-style Shabbat dinner at his parents’ house in Calabasas, Calif. She then began studying Farsi online, and did not shy away from difficult pronunciations such as “khayli khoob” (very good). Ms. Stern also grew adept at anatomical terms for the eye, like tarsal platform show (the area of the eyelid showing underneath the eyelid crease), which she slipped into her instructional YouTube makeup videos.
“Every time I look at an eye I look at it differently because of him,” she said.
In March 2020 they celebrated each other’s birthdays, Ms. Stern’s at a dinner where Dr. Karlin met her parents, and his at a surprise party where she met even more of his family. The day after Dr. Karlin’s birthday party Los Angeles went into pandemic lockdown. As a safety precaution, Ms. Stern’s parents encouraged her to move out of their house for a couple of weeks and stay at his place because he was working at an area hospital.
“It forced us to make a decision to be in the relationship,” he said, “and we said yes to it everyday.”
Dr. Karlin is an assistant professor of ophthalmology and oculoplastic surgery at the Stein and Doheny Eye Institutes at University of California, Los Angeles. He also treats patients at the Skin Cancer and Reconstructive Surgery Center in Newport Beach, Calif., the Doheny Eye Institute in Fountain Valley, Calif., and the Stein Eye Institute in Calabasas. A graduate of University of California, Berkeley, he received a medical degree from Tel Aviv University in Israel.
He proposed on May 13, 2021, at the top of Runyon Canyon, one of many places the two like to go hiking, and a passing hiker took photos.
On Jan. 8, they were married before Rabbi Joel Simonds in a ceremony held by a centuries-old oak tree at Ojai Valley Inn in Ojai, Calif., as the sunset showered everything in shades of pinks and oranges. In attendance were 130 vaccinated guests, who had also tested negative for Covid before the event using kits sent to them by the bride’s parents.
Ms. Stern, who is taking the groom’s name, wore Charlotte Tilbury’s soft pink Pillow Talk eye shadow with a soft brown eyeliner for the occasion. “During the ceremony,” she said, “we stared into each other’s eyes.”
