Deborah Jennifer Yarchun was shocked when her good friend swiped left on Benjamin Ernest Parr.
“Why would you try this?” she requested of her good friend’s rejection of Mr. Parr on the League, a relationship app for formidable individuals.
She had been drawn to his photograph. “He simply regarded so pleased and type,” Ms. Yarchun mentioned.
A couple of weeks later, Ms. Yarchun got here throughout Mr. Parr on the identical app. She rapidly swiped proper.
On Feb. 3, 2018, Ms. Yarchun wore a purple turtleneck sweater to their first date, at Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels, a wine bar in SoHo. When she admitted she had been impressed by Mr. Parr’s 2015 ebook, “Captivology: The Science of Capturing Folks’s Consideration” — a lady sporting purple on a date is more likely to immediate a person to take a seat nearer, Mr. Parr had written — Mr. Parr’s eyes lit up.
The six-hour date flew by. So did their second date, after they walked right into a Chelsea bar that occurred to be internet hosting a burlesque present. On their third date — Valentine’s Day — Ms. Yarchun and Mr. Parr formally grew to become a pair.
“I stored considering, ‘What’s the catch?’” mentioned Ms. Yarchun, 38. “It turned on the market was no catch. He was the catch.”
They bonded over their shared love for writing. Ms. Yarchun’s 2019 play, “Drive,” received Dartmouth’s Neukom Institute Literary Award for Playwriting, and she or he has taught playwriting on the College of Iowa and Indiana College. Ms. Yarchun graduated from Drexel College with a bachelor’s diploma in screenwriting and playwriting, after which earned her M.F.A. in playwriting from the College of Iowa. She grew up in New Jersey and Germany earlier than her household settled down in Austin, Texas.
Mr. Parr, 39, is a founding father of a pair of synthetic intelligence corporations, Octane AI and Principle Forge Ventures, and writes a daily column for The Info. A local of Princeton, Unwell., Mr. Parr graduated from Northwestern College with a double main in political science and science in human tradition.
In November 2019, Ms. Yarchun moved into Mr. Parr’s residence in NoLIta. The following day, the residence immediately above theirs caught on fireplace, leaving their residence with in depth water injury. They spent the subsequent few months bouncing round New York, Los Angeles and Fort Value, Texas, earlier than planning to return to Manhattan in March 2020.
Two days earlier than their scheduled transfer to a subleased residence, nevertheless, they realized the house had mattress bugs. Mr. Parr and Ms. Yarchun, who had been staying in a close-by lodge, canceled the sublease and fled to an Airbnb in Woodstock, N.Y. It proved to be prescient: By the tip of the month, New York, like a lot of the world, was in pandemic lockdown.
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So Ms. Yarchun and Mr. Parr embraced their nomadic life-style, selecting a brand new location every month, reserving an Airbnb and hitting the street.
“It was tremendous clear how sturdy our relationship was, and the way a lot we loved spending time collectively,” Mr. Parr mentioned.
They frolicked on a farm in Vermont and in a cottage within the Poconos. They visited Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon. They ate Thanksgiving dinner on a rock simply over Arizona’s border with New Mexico, feasting on turkey, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes from Cracker Barrel because the solar set.
“I used to be like, ‘How are we by no means having fights in any respect?’” Ms. Yarchun mentioned. “Should you can pack your life right into a automotive collectively time and again and your relationship survives, you would possibly as properly get married.”
In Could 2021, they moved right into a everlasting residence in Culver Metropolis, Calif. Then, on March 4, 2023, Mr. Parr proposed to Ms. Yarchun. She mentioned sure.
They had been married on April 6 on the Cedar Bend in Austin in entrance of 91 company. Christina Beleck, a Common Life Church minister and the mother-in-law of Ms. Yarchun’s youthful brother Daniel, officiated. They integrated each Jewish and Thai traditions, a nod to Ms. Yarchun and Mr. Parr’s respective backgrounds. The ceremony was held beneath a huppah they usually obtained two conventional Thai marriage ceremony blessings. In the course of the cocktail hour, they served rugelach, a Jewish pastry, and Thai summer season rolls.
Earlier than company dined on fajitas, all eyes turned to Ms. Yarchun and Mr. Parr for his or her first dance to “Good Day for Marrying You,” by Dave Barnes. The music had typically come up randomly on Spotify as they traversed the nation, their bond deepening with each mile.
“I’m not a pure dancer, however when it got here on my physique couldn’t assist dancing to it,” Ms. Yarchun mentioned. “I’d simply be overcome with pleasure on the thought of marrying Ben.”
