The first time Elizabeth Maia Wexler met Eric Ryan Hollenberg, she didn’t see the backside half of his face.
The pair initially linked on the relationship app Bumble in March 2020. They had been sporadically messaging for months when, that June, they realized that they each occurred to be vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, and determined to fulfill up for a socially distanced stroll in a park.
Even although they stored their masks on and stayed six toes aside throughout their stroll, they loved spending time with one another, and left craving extra. The subsequent day, Ms. Wexler and Mr. Hollenberg met up at Lambert’s Cove Beach, the place they unfold out a towel between them to make sure they stored far sufficient aside.
“It was like a breath of fresh air,” stated Mr. Hollenberg, 31, about his first few dates with Ms. Wexler.
Both had been dwelling in Manhattan, and after they returned that summer season, they started seeing one another extra commonly. By the fall of 2020, the two had been spending most of their time collectively, consuming outside or exploring Westchester County, N.Y., the place Ms. Wexler’s dad and mom stay. (Mr. Hollenberg’s dad and mom reside in Livingston, N.J.)
“We were our most natural selves,” stated Ms. Wexler, 31. “It was just so easy.”
That winter they returned to Martha’s Vineyard for about two months, the place they celebrated each of their birthdays collectively.
“We were joking that we felt like an old married couple,” Mr. Hollenberg stated. “It just felt so natural.”
Following that journey, they started speaking about their future and, in April 2021, the two moved in collectively in Manhattan. A few months later they picked out an engagement ring. In July 2021, Mr. Hollenberg proposed throughout one other go to to Martha’s Vineyard. But Ms. Wexler stated that she had already began planning a marriage earlier than they turned engaged.
A graduate of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, she is the founding father of Emlan Events, a marriage and occasion planning firm in Manhattan. Mr. Hollenberg graduated from Suffolk University in Boston and is the founding father of Third Ave Studios, a branding company in Manhattan.
The couple knew they needed to have a brief engagement, and shortly settled on Shun Lee West, a restaurant in Manhattan, as the venue for his or her wedding ceremony set for the winter of 2021. The visitor listing numbered 150.
Ms. Wexler was wanting ahead to working with a bunch of distributors she had met over the course of her profession. But as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus started to comb by way of New York, she began to get anxious. A few days earlier than their wedding ceremony, Ms. Wexler and Mr. Hollenberg determined to cancel the massive celebration they’d deliberate.
“It’s just incredibly ironic that the wedding planner’s plans have been completely thrown into the air by Omicron,” Ms. Wexler stated. But the couple knew that they nonetheless needed to get married, and selected to carry a a lot smaller gathering on the identical date as a substitute.
“It’s not about the hoopla,” she stated. “It’s about getting married.”
In lower than every week, Ms. Wexler and her crew deliberate a second celebration for about 35 of the couple’s shut family and friends members, all of whom had been vaccinated and examined damaging for Covid-19.
On Dec. 23, the two had been married at her dad and mom’ dwelling in Rye, N.Y., in a ceremony led by Rabbi Jeffrey Segelman.
“Our lives are better and more full with each other,” Ms. Wexler stated. “It’s really just the biggest blessing in the world to have each other and have a really strong relationship.”
Of their pared-down celebration, Mr. Hollenberg stated, “I just think it’s so fitting. We met during Covid.”
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