They Met on the Court. They Both Won in Love.

Eric Wankerl is probably nobody’s idea of a swaggering jock, but when Paige Marquardt caught his eye on a Minnesota basketball court in 2013, he didn’t hesitate to let her know he was curious.

“He asked me 20 questions,” Ms. Marquardt said. “He wanted to know a lot about me, how old I was and all that.”

Given the setting — a Special Olympics tournament — he already knew at least one thing about Ms. Marquardt. Like him, she has a disability. He thought they might have more in common. Maybe she, too, was a Minnesota Twins fan, or maybe she would like to be his friend.

Mr. Wankerl, of Spicer, Minn., is 31. When he was a toddler, his parents were told he would have diminished intellectual capacity. His mother, Paula Bredberg, a business development planner for a tour company, remembers the advice handed out by a small army of test administrators and specialists she and Mr. Wankerl’s father, Rich Wankerl, had consulted in the early 1990s.

“We were told he’s never going to be the doctor or lawyer or engineer that you might have hoped for, so prepare yourself,” Ms. Bredberg said. “His dad and I had to go through counseling, this sort of grieving stuff where they tell you, ‘This is the child you were given.’ At the time it was painful. My marriage dissolved before Eric started school.”

Grieving for what Mr. Wankerl might have been instead of celebrating him for who he was, though, was never an option for Ms. Bredberg.

“Eric is the friendliest person,” she said. “He knows everybody in town. He hugs everybody he sees. I’ve learned so much from him about inclusion and patience and open-mindedness. Having him changed the way I look at the world.”

Mr. Wankerl grew up in the small community of Willmar, Minn. He and his mother spent much of his childhood volunteering together at a local food bank and signing up for events like camping and kayaking at the local Y.M.C.A.

“Part of it was I just needed to keep busy,” said Ms. Bredberg, who raised Mr. Wankerl and his younger sister, Erin Liu, largely alone. “I wanted them not to have idle hands, so they would stay out of trouble.” The family’s constant activity was also built on Ms. Bredberg’s instinct to protect. “I thought, the more people who are seeing him in town, the more people who are going to know him and look out for him. And that turned out to be true.”

Mr. Wankerl joined Special Olympics in 2001 as a basketball player when he was 13. At first he played on his school district’s team. When he graduated from Willmar High School in 2007, he transferred to an adult team in town. A few years in, one of his favorite coaches from the school district team, Todd Paffrath, switched to coaching adults. When Mr. Wankerl laced his sneakers for his first adult games with Mr. Paffrath, the coach was pleased to see him.

“Eric has a good shot and is a real good basketball player,” said Mr. Paffrath, the owner of Paffrath and Son, a Willmar jewelry store. “And everybody knows he has a huge heart.”

Mr. Paffrath would not get the full measure of how huge until early 2013, when Ms. Marquardt’s basketball team went to compete in the tournament that brought them together in Willmar. “You could tell he fell for her,” Mr. Paffrath said. “We’d do running drills, and he would say, ‘Come on, Paige! Push it!’ He would really look after her.”

Ms. Marquardt, now 28, also started playing Special Olympics basketball as a teenager with her school district’s team. Her childhood in Spicer was similar to Mr. Wankerl’s: developmental delays were identified as toddler, and her parents, Joanna and Steve Marquardt, made a mission of keeping her active and engaged.

“In school, Paige was kind of shy, but I think that came from being maybe uncomfortable in that world,” Mrs. Marquardt said. “In the community, with Special Olympics and other programs, she felt more comfortable. She’s more confident and outgoing in those settings.” When Ms. Marquardt graduated from Spicer High School in 2010, she also kept playing with a local team. Special Olympics became the cornerstone of her social life. By the time she traveled from Spicer to Willmar for the tournament with Mr. Wankerl’s team, she was dating a teammate.

When Mr. Wankerl approached Mr. Marquardt and barraged her with questions after that game in 2013, he didn’t know she was dating someone. He still didn’t know a few days later, when he invited four Special Olympics families, including Ms. Marquardt’s and her boyfriend’s, to his mother’s house for dinner.

“Eric had told me he was interested in Paige after he met her — he was love struck,” Ms. Bredberg said.

Mr. Wankerl’s plan during the dinner party was to ask Ms. Marquardt to the town’s annual spring dance for people with developmental disabilities, hosted by Advocacy and Inclusion Matter, a local nonprofit organization. “I was nervous,” he said; he had never had a girlfriend. He practiced his script on his mother. But once he learned Ms. Marquardt was dating her teammate, he pressed pause on the dance invitation. A few months later came the news that Ms. Marquardt’s boyfriend was moving to Iowa.

“I don’t like doing long distance,” Ms. Marquardt said, which opened the door to Mr. Wankerl asking her to Advocacy and Inclusion Matter’s fall dance. “We were always being friends,” he said. “And she was very special and pretty.” Ms. Marquardt accepted.

At the dance, they talked about sports and pets. Ms. Marquardt has two cats and two dogs. Mr. Wankerl is a longtime Green Bay Packers football fan, and just as he had hoped, he and Ms. Marquardt both loved the Minnesota Twins. They slow danced to “From This Moment On,” a Shania Twain song.

Afterward, they called and texted each other constantly. “I don’t think they’ve been separated since,” Ms. Bredberg said.

Ms. Marquardt has lived in Spicer with her parents all her life. Mr. Wankerl also lives in Spicer, in an apartment a few miles from his mother’s house. He has been living independently since he was 19, at her suggestion. “Not everyone agreed with me, but I needed him to know he is independent in case anything ever happened to me, that he could do it,” Ms. Bredberg said.

Mr. Wankerl dries cars at a local carwash and helps with cleaning at Bethesda Day Break nursing home in Willmar; he also stocks shelves, a volunteer job, at Willmar’s Kandiyohi County Food Shelf. Ms. Marquardt works at the Unity Stamp Company in New London, Minn., packaging and mailing stamp orders.

Since early in their relationship, Tuesdays have been date nights. They cook together and watch a movie or a Twins game at Mr. Wankerl’s apartment. Sometimes, they take walks around the neighborhood or go to concerts in the park. Mr. Wankerl started thinking about asking Ms. Marquardt to marry him one of their first Tuesday nights.

He didn’t want to seem eager, though. “I decided to wait a little bit,” he said, so that Ms. Marquardt wouldn’t feel rushed. In November 2017, he felt ready. Once again, he turned to his mother to practice. She also came with him on a shopping trip to Paffrath and Son Jewelry.

Mr. Paffrath, who had been given a heads up about the visit, was happy to have one of his favorite players as a customer. “He came in and put his arms around me, because every time you see Eric it’s a big hug,” Mr. Paffrath said. “Then he said, ‘Coach Todd, I want to get Paige a ring.’ We sat down and I showed him a few things,” Mr. Paffrath said. “He had saved all his money from the carwash job, and he had done well with saving.”

Mr. Wankerl settled on a heart-shape diamond. “I bought it so Paige could have my heart,” he said. The night before Thanksgiving, Mr. Wankerl and Ms. Marquardt and their families had dinner together at Johnny O’Neil’s, a restaurant in Spicer.

At the restaurant, Mr. Wankerl waited for everyone to finish dinner and dessert. Then he dropped to one knee and presented Ms. Marquardt with a handwritten card and the ring.

“The card said, ‘Paige, you know it’s Thanksgiving and I’m thankful for you,’” Mr. Wankerl said. “‘You make me a better person. You would make me the happiest man in the world if you would be my wife. Paige Marquardt, will you marry me?’”

“It was a secret,” Ms. Marquardt said. “I didn’t even know about it.” She was not too surprised to say yes.

Mr. Wankerl calls his mother every day, first thing. Once he and Ms. Marquardt settled on an Aug. 3 wedding in Spicer, he started turning their morning call into a countdown.

“Every day it was, 18 days till our wedding! Or however many days,” Ms. Bredberg said. Ms. Marquardt started bringing her belongings to Mr. Wankerl’s apartment, where they will live together.

The idea of leaving her parents’ house took time to sink in. “Paige is an organizer,” Mrs. Marquardt said. “She likes to get things just as she wants them. After she went over there and they talked about — How do you want your chair to be? How do you want your bed to be? — she was a lot more positive about moving in.”

More adjustments will follow, as they do for all married couples. But Mrs. Marquardt isn’t overly concerned. “Eric and Paige love each other, and they’re committed to each other and to making each other better,” she said. “If there’s any issue in the marriage, our families will surround them and help them out.”

On Aug. 3, at the Open Door Christian Church in Spicer, they made that commitment public before 230 of their friends, family and teammates. Ms. Marquardt, in a white A-line dress with a fitted, sequined bodice from Finley Florence Bridal in New London, walked down the aisle with her father to an altar adorned with white tulle and greenery. He hugged her tightly before releasing her. Four bridesmaids in blush-colored dresses, including her sisters Lauren Marquardt and Ashley Hagedorn, held pink bouquets. Mr. Wankerl, in a gray tuxedo, was attended by four groomsmen in matching outfits.

Steve Bakke, the pastor of Open Door Christian Church, set up a short ceremony by explaining the anticipation that had gone into the day. “I’ve been getting text messages from Eric,” Mr. Bakke said, adding that they would be in countdown form. “It’d be, ‘66 days.’ Today is day zero.”

Just after he pronounced them married, Mr. Bakke told Mr. Wankerl he would step aside and let him kiss the bride. “But before I do,” he said, “Can I remind you of something? Your father-in-law is in the front row and I don’t think you want him to know how much you’ve been practicing this.”

Mr. Wankerl turned to his wedding guests and grinned. “He can close his eyes,” he said.

And with that, he kissed her. “They really are just like everyone else,” said the groom’s mother. “We all want to find someone to love.”

ON THIS DAY

When Aug. 3, 2019

Where Open Door Christian Church, Spicer, Minn.

Cupcakes for a Cause After the wedding, guests nibbled from a taco bar during a reception at Johnny O’Neil’s. Cupcakes were made by Farmhouse Kitchen in Spicer. For the month of August, the bakery is donating all proceeds to the Special Olympics in honor of Mr. Wankerl and Ms. Marquardt.

No Jitters Before the wedding, Ms. Marquardt said she felt calm all day. During their first look, Mr. Wankerl told Ms. Marquardt, “You’re cute.” Ms. Marquardt replied, “You’re as handsome as always.”

Their Song The couple’s first dance, played by two DJs, was Shania Twain’s “From This Moment On.”

Erica Dischino contributed reporting from Spicer, Minn.

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