Michelle Angulo and Staff Sgt. Maxamillian Alexander Dutton were married Oct. 2 at Waterfront Park in Alexandria, Va. The Rev. Jeffrey L. Maszal, a United Church of Christ minister, officiated.
The bride, 29, is a foreign service officer at the State Department in Washington. She is serving at the United States Embassy in Cairo. She graduated from the University of Chicago and received a master’s degree in law and diplomacy from Tufts. She also received a master’s degree in refugee and forced migration Studies from the University of Oxford, England.
She is a daughter of Doris Angulo and Jose Angulo of East Stroudsburg, Pa.
The groom, 26, is a staff sergeant in charge of the Marine Corps Base Ceremonial Platoon in Quantico, Va, where, on Oct. 1, he received a Navy Commendation Medal. He joined the Marine Corps Band as a drummer upon high school graduation and in January 2020 is to become a Marine recruiter in South Florida.
He is a son of Colleen A. Hamlet and Keith D. Dutton of Philadelphia.
The couple met in a small coffee shop in Arlington, Va., in August 2018. She had just finished foreign service duty in Shanghai and was on her way back to the State Department in Washington to study the Arabic language in advance of her next assignment, in Cairo. He was then a color sergeant for the Marines, and already stationed in Quantico.
Both were sitting alone when he walked over to her table and complimented her hair style.
She looked up.
“He was so handsome, it was love at first sight,” she said. “We just had an immediate and magical chemistry together.”
They were soon involved in a whirlwind romance, and within a month, Sergeant Dutton, who lived in Woodbridge, Va., moved in to Ms. Angulo’s apartment in Arlington.
“She was this small person who spoke to me as if she were 10 feet tall,” he said. “She just had this high level of confidence and an incredible amount of energy that created a kind of aura about her.”
They lived together for one year before their careers pulled them in different directions, Ms. Angulo to Cairo, and Sergeant Dutton to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to begin recruitment training for the Marines.
“I grew up in a rough life in Philadelphia,” Sergeant Dutton said. “But in the short time that Michelle and I have been together, she has taught me how to be a kinder and more thoughtful person. She has been my best friend.”
During a long-distance romance that ensued, “there wasn’t a day that went by when we didn’t talk to each other,” Ms. Angulo said.
“Throughout the entire time, Max remained my biggest cheerleader, and the most loyal, genuine and considerate person I have ever met, and our inevitable separation has only strengthened our love for one another.”
