Miriam Gottfried and Trevor Williams are to be married Aug. 4 at Sound River Studios, an events space in Long Island City, Queens. Rabbi Matthew L. Green is to officiate.
The bride, 36, is a business reporter covering private equity for The Wall Street Journal in Manhattan. She graduated with high honors from Wesleyan and received a master’s degree in business and economics journalism from Columbia.
She is a daughter of Jeffry Gottfried of Portland, Ore., and the late Emily Georges Gottfried.
The groom, 39, is the live-action director at Pig Apple, a production company involved in comedic content for TV and the web. In June, his short film “Faceblind Love,” a romantic comedy, premiered at the New York International Shorts Festival. He graduated cum laude from the University of Georgia, from which he also received a master’s degree in journalism.
He is a son of Susan M. Williams and Thomas H. Williams of Atlanta.
The bride’s previous marriage ended in divorce.
The couple’s eyes met in April 2016 on a Manhattan-bound B subway train from Brooklyn during the morning rush hour.
“This beautiful woman had the biggest eyeballs I had ever seen,’’ he said. “She was making googly eyes at me.”
Ms. Gottfried did not see it that way at all. “He was looking right at me and smiled,” she said.
Mr. Williams watched amused as a sort of pantomime played out, with her balancing a box, reading a book and holding an animated exchange with a woman next to her about a big suitcase. “She was like Mary Pickford in a silent movies,’’ he said. “Big eyes and curly hair.’’
Mr. Williams, determined to make a move before he got off the train, said he enlisted a “curmudgeonly older woman” to help pass his business card to her.
“‘He wants me to give this to you,’’’ he recalled the woman saying as she turned Ms. Gottfried. ‘Do you know him?’”
Ms. Gottfried replied, “I’ll take it.’’ She blushed as she read the note on the card saying how adorable she was.
“At the moment of peak embarrassment I was able to escape the train at Broadway-Lafayette,’’ he said, and winked at Ms. Gottfried as he got off.
She did a Google search on him as soon as she got to the office, and said later at a “dignified hour” she emailed him. “You might be surprised to learn that you are not the first guy to give me his card on the M.T.A.,’’ she said. “But you are probably the one who made me smile the most.”
After a week of flirty emails, she wrote: “I love emailing, but when are you going to ask me out.” A couple of days later they met at the Crown Inn bar, near her new apartment in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
“A minute into our first date there was an instant sense of familiarity,’’ he said, and when he slipped away to the bar the song “My Girl” played over the speakers. “I sang it to myself, then I looked up and she was singing it, and then we smiled and bopping our heads sang it to each other.’’
They began dating, and two years later moved in together.
In December 2018, he carried out a proposal starting with a trip to an Andy Warhol exhibit at the Whitney Museum, where, as a ploy, he persuaded Ms. Gottfried, not a football fan, to join him and a friend at a Brooklyn bar for the Georgia-Alabama game. (And, where friends and family would also be there to celebrate.)
They caught a No. 2 train at 14th Street nearby, where Blackout, an a cappella group, Mr. Williams had hired, also got on posing as passengers.
A few minutes later, three singers began a soft harmony of “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” and gradually nine others chimed in.
“Do you have a dollar,’’ Mr. Williams recalled asking Ms. Gottfried, who said it looked like they were singing for fun, and as the singers walked toward them, Mr. Williams asked, “Do you know why they are looking at us,’’ to which Ms. Gottfried replied, “I don’t.”
“I think I know,’’ Mr. Williams said, and got down on one knee.
One passenger, who got off at their stop, told them they had made her day, and stuffed a wedding gift into Mr. Williams’s hand. After she walked off, they were surprised to find two $100 bills.
“She made us love New York even more,’’ said Mr. Williams.
“Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, said Ms. Gottfried.
