Andrew Todd Eddins walked into an L.G.B.T.Q. tennis party in November 2003 in the Bronx near Yankee Stadium, with some trepidation, or as he put it: “I was like a deer in headlights in tennis gear.”
A week earlier a friend had called him out of the blue saying he had signed them up for the event.
“On my way there my friend called to say he left his sneakers at home,” said Mr. Eddins (left). “He would meet me there later.”
Ivan Jay Hurwitz, one of the hosts at the party sponsored by the Metropolitan Tennis Group, an L.G.B.T.Q. tennis league, quickly noticed Mr. Eddins seemed a little lost.
“We chatted a little bit, and I showed him around,” said Mr. Hurwitz, who then proceeded to play a game himself. As Mr. Eddins awaited his turn to play, he pulled up a chair next to Mr. Hurwitz’s court and cheered him with great enthusiasm.
“When he had a particularly good backhand I applauded, and he bowed,” Mr. Eddins said.
Mr. Hurwitz was conscious of the attention.
“What’s going on here,” Mr. Hurwitz recalled thinking. “Is he interested, or just crazy?”
When Mr. Eddins’s friend finally arrived, he asked if Mr. Eddins had met anyone interesting. Mr. Eddins then gestured to Mr. Hurwitz, who was milling around. “‘The greeter? You like the greeter?’” he recalled his friend saying. “‘So when you go to Saks do you just buy the first sweater you see?’” Mr. Eddins recalled saying: “Maybe, sometimes. If it’s the right one.”
Mr. Eddins, who had Mr. Hurwitz’s email address from the tennis party invite, sent him a note a couple of days later asking him out for coffee, to which Mr. Hurwitz responded: “Nice to meet you. But, I can’t have coffee with you,” a momentary letdown for Mr. Eddins until he read further, “because I don’t drink coffee. Maybe you’d like to have dinner sometime.”
The next weekend they went out for Mexican food in Hell’s Kitchen, and learned they each graduated from the University of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Hurwitz, 52, now a senior vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he manages the bank applications department and is an equal employment opportunity officer, received a law degree from Boston University.
Mr. Eddins, 61, retired as a corporate vice president in the communications department of the New York Life Insurance Company in Manhattan.
“Everything progressed nicely and naturally,” said Mr. Hurwitz of the relationship.
In December 2004, after spending a week together in Palm Beach, Fla., Mr. Eddins, returned to his apartment in Washington Heights, and Mr. Hurwitz to his on the Upper West Side. Mr. Eddins, who missed Mr. Hurwitz’s company soon called to touch base, and was very pleasantly surprised when Mr. Hurwitz said: “I think it’s about time we get a place together.”
In September they moved into an apartment steps from Fort Tryon Park in Hudson Heights, and in June 2013, inspired by New York State’s legal recognition of same-sex marriage, Mr. Eddins proposed, in the park’s heather garden.
Seven years later, in 2019, they planned to get married in Fort Tryon Park on Oct. 24, 2020 with about 150 guests, followed by a reception at New Leaf Restaurant there, which closed in January. After the coronavirus hit, they put their plans on hold.
In September, with their park permit still valid, they decided to keep the original date. Kelsey Hurwitz, a niece of Mr. Hurwitz, who became a Universal Life Church minister for the occasion, officiated under a cathedral-like canopy of linden trees overlooking the Hudson River in the Linden Terrace section of the park. Their 15 guests each received a mini chocolate layer wedding cake to take home, while about 100 others watched on a video link.
