Lynn Estes Stopher and Rajiv Mahendra Desai were married June 22 at Whitehall, an events space in Louisville, Ky. David W. Stopher, a brother of the bride, officiated, having become a Universal Life minister for the occasion. Reena Mahendra Shah, the groom’s sister, took part in the ceremony, performing Hindu marriage traditions including the lighting of a candle and the exchange of floral garlands.
Ms. Stopher, 31, is a staff lawyer at the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago, where she works on a project for asylum seekers. She graduated from the University of Virginia, received a master’s degree in international education policy from Harvard and received a law degree from Vanderbilt.
She is the daughter of Nancy Stanger Stopher and Robert E. Stopher of Louisville. The bride’s father is a partner in Boehl Stopher & Graves, a Louisville law firm. Her mother was a stay-at-home parent.
Mr. Desai, 32, is a health care services consultant in the Chicago office of L.E.K. Consulting. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and received a doctoral degree in biomedical engineering from Harvard.
He is the son of Nalini P. Desai and Mahendra P. Desai of San Diego. His father retired as an aerospace engineer in San Diego for United Technologies. His mother retired as a clinical laboratory scientist at Sharp Healthcare, a health system in San Diego.
The couple initially met in 2012, when Ms. Stopher visited Mr. Desai’s apartment to hang out with his roommates, who were also her classmates. Some months later, she happened to be walking by and found Mr. Desai out on the street, watching a house fire consume the place.
“He said, ‘My house is in flames — do you want to go get a beer?’” she recalled. (He said he recalls suggesting ice cream, but that shop was closed so they ended up getting beer after all.)
She offered to host Mr. Desai and his roommates until they could find a new place. As the weeks went by, the roommates all moved on. But Mr. Desai, smitten with Ms. Stopher, lingered, cleaning and cooking elaborate dinners, and doing everything possible to “be a really, really good house guest.”
Eventually, he too moved out, and the two quickly transitioned from accidental roommates to intentional dating. “We did everything backwards!” Ms. Stopher said.
