Maya Ergas Shwayder left her first date with Nicholas Anthony Quaranto in November 2017 thinking they would just be friends. Both Ameri...
Maya Ergas Shwayder left her first date with Nicholas Anthony Quaranto in November 2017 thinking they would just be friends.
Both Americans living in Berlin, Mr. Quaranto, 34, had arrived six months earlier with his wife, who had taken up a full-time job there, and their two young sons, then aged 2 and 4. Although he is not yet divorced, nor legally separated, he and his wife had agreed that their marriage was over and they could each see other people, he said.
Looking for companionship, he logged on to the dating app Tinder and met Ms Shwayder, 33, who worked in Berlin as a news anchor and on-air correspondent with Deutsche Welle, a broadcaster German-owned satellite TV.
Born and raised in Farmington Hills, Michigan, Ms. Shwayder, a Harvard graduate with a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia, “had an extremely dynamic and outgoing personality,” Mr. Quaranto said.
“He was just an amazing person, someone who shone so brightly,” added Mr. Quaranto, a software engineer from Buffalo who graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology.
After two weeks of correspondence, they planned to see the movie “Justice League” at a theater in a local mall. On what Ms Shwayder described as ‘a cold, rough and rainy November night’, she arrived to find Mr Quaranto already waiting for her at the agreed meeting place.
“That’s a very stupid hat he’s wearing,” Ms Shwayder recalled, thinking to herself. She started laughing and Mr. Quaranto, who was wearing a blue newsboy cap, started laughing with her, although he wasn’t quite sure why (she later hinted).
Ms Shwayder had another thought, she added: ‘He’s kinda cute.’
Midway through the film, with the dim lights long gone black, Mr. Quaranto mumbled something to Ms. Shwayder that she couldn’t hear.
When she asked what he said, Mr. Quaranto nervously replied, “Can I hold your hand?”
“Of course,” she replied.
After the film, they went to a nearby bar and struck up a serious conversation that revolved around Mr. Quaranto’s relationship situation, “to which he said a divorce was imminent, although he didn’t still quite suited to that fact,” Ms. Shwayder says. “So I left thinking he was going to be a really good friend.”
After enjoying each other’s company, they soon reunited for what ended up being an eight-hour excursion that included a trip to the German Spy Museum in Berlin.
That day, “he was so kind and smart, and when I said something, he listened to me,” she said. “As someone who goes out a lot, it was nice to find someone who treated me like a human being.”
The following month, in December 2017, Mr Quaranto and his family left Berlin for Buffalo after his wife’s job did not work out. “It was time for us to come home and sort out all the divorce issues,” he said.
Ms Shwayder said: ‘He was going through a really difficult time in his life.
The two kept in touch by phone and took turns visiting each other for the next 15 months until Ms Shwayder decided in the summer of 2019 to move in with Mr Quaranto, who was then divorced and living in Boston. He now works as a director at Wistia, a software engineering company in Cambridge, Mass., which provides video hosting services to businesses.
“All the signs were pointing to changing my life,” said Ms Shwayder, now a freelance journalist. “It made a lot of sense for me to take a leap with him.”
In February 2021, the two got engaged at a movie theater in Portsmouth, NH Just before the start of “The Princess Bride,” their favorite movie, Mr. Quaranto got down on one knee and moved her to tears when he asked, “Do you want to be my princess bride?
They tied the knot on April 20 at Zingerman’s Cornman Farms, an event venue in Dexter, Michigan, in front of Julie Gales, leader of the Jewish Cultural Society in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and 16 fully vaccinated guests.
“Nick has given me a great sense of comfort for the past four years,” the bride said. “All the trips to see each other were worth it. From now on, wherever we go, we will travel together.
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