Despite taking train, plane and bus rides to see one another, they split in 2015.
The two never entirely lost touch, though, and by 2016, they had gotten back together with the plan to live in the same city. Two years later, in 2018, Mr. Evans relocated to the Bay Area for a job at Google, where he is now a global compensation specialist. Ms. Fortson moved to the area around the same time and began freelancing at an ABC affiliate in San Francisco, where she is now a full-time breaking news and traffic anchor.
In March 2020, the week that California locked down because of the pandemic, they moved in together. Ms. Fortson, now 30, broadcast from the couple’s primary bedroom, forcing Mr. Evans, also 30, to tiptoe around their home when she was on air. But “we never tired of each other,” he said.
Mr. Evans proposed in June 2021, surprising Ms. Fortson when he pulled out a ring at sunset after the couple had a picnic at Schoolhouse Beach in Bodega Bay, Calif. Some close friends who were in on his plan were hiding nearby to capture the moment in photos.
The couple were married Sept. 3 at the Chateau de Ninis, a French-inspired villa overlooking a panorama of vineyards, in Sonoma, Calif. Roberta Edge, Mr. Evans’s aunt and a deacon at the nondenominational Heritage Fellowship Church in Reston, Va., officiated after being designated a deputy marriage commissioner by San Francisco City and County for the occasion. Their 107 guests were required to provide a negative Covid test to attend.
For the reception that followed, the bride, who has reported on diversity in the wedding industry, and groom hired Black vendors, including chef Christina Alexis of the Pleasure Principle Dining Events, who prepared a Haitian-Caribbean-themed dinner that included jerk chicken, coconut milk kale and Juanito cakes, a sweet and spicy cornbread pancake. Later, the newlyweds and some of their guests headed to Steiners Tavern in downtown Sonoma for an after-party.
