Rebecca Rose Nelson and Stanley Justin Kay were married Jan. 18 at the Addison in Boca Raton, Fla. Rabbi David Englander officiated.
The bride, 28, is a freelance writer in New York and has written for The Washington Post magazine, Elle, GQ and other publications. She graduated from Northwestern. She is the daughter of Janice Berk Nelson of Auburn, Wash., and Paul E. Nelson of Seattle.
The groom, 27, is the news director for Sports Illustrated in New York. He also graduated from Northwestern, and is the son of Renée Krickstein Kay and Gary L. Kay of Delray Beach, Fla.
The bride and groom also volunteer as co-directors of the Princeton Summer Journalism Program, a 10-day seminar held each August on the Princeton campus for low-income high school seniors that aims to diversify college and professional newsrooms.
Though the couple both graduated from Northwestern, they did not meet until 2013, when they served as interns at Washingtonian magazine.
Despite the fact that each had a significant other, they became friends immediately, “regularly sampling Washington’s unhealthy food scene,” Ms. Nelson said, laughing, “like the President Obama burger at Good Stuff Eatery, and the doughnut fried chicken sandwich at Golden Brown Delicious.”
At the end of the summer in 2013, Mr. Kay went back to Evanston, Ill., for his senior year at Northwestern, while Ms. Nelson stayed on as an assistant editor at the Washingtonian.
In December 2014, Mr. Kay, who was now working at Sports Illustrated, sent to Ms. Nelson what she described as a “how are you, it’s been a while kind of email,” opening up a new channel of communication.
Ms. Nelson was still in Washington at the time, and working as a reporter at the National Journal. Both she and Mr. Kay were now single.
In February 2015, Ms. Nelson sent Mr. Kay a text wondering if he would be interested in going with her to a brunch while she was visiting New York for a long weekend. Mr. Kay, who was a bit disappointed as he had been hoping to go with Ms. Nelson to dinner, accepted the invitation, and they met at Grey Dog in Greenwich Village. Brunch turned into a stroll together through Washington Square Park, and then a trip to the Strand bookstore, where they browsed through rare books, before heading off to Churchill’s Tavern on East 28th Street for beers.
“It was clear that we had the makings of more than just a friendship,” said Ms. Nelson, who noted that Mr. Kay “treated me and everyone else with respect and empathy.”
“We had this really good, easy conversation where we were talking, among other things, about our previous relationships and why those went wrong,” she added. “It was all very natural.”
Mr. Kay said that Ms. Nelson “brought an incredible level of intellectual curiosity,” to their chat over brunch.
“Our conversations were very, very deep from the beginning, but Rebecca also had a great sense of humor,” he said. “I knew from the start that I wanted to marry her, but I took things slow because I didn’t want to scare her away.”
