When Alexandra Vasilia Voyatzakis first noticed Pontus Mikael Henriksson on the courting app Bumble in the summertime of 2018, she didn’t swipe proper, however not as a result of he wasn’t her kind. (He undoubtedly was.)
“I distinctly keep in mind seeing his face,” stated Ms. Voyatzakis, noting that she had discovered him engaging. However she was additionally fearful. She had an unlucky courting historical past when it got here to courting good-looking males, which her associates sometimes called “model-y varieties,” she stated. These relationships all the time failed.
However when she noticed Mr. Henriksson seem in her search once more in early January 2019, she determined to present him a swipe. The 2 matched that exact same day.
“I keep in mind considering that she was completely beautiful, however I used to be intimated,” Mr. Henriksson stated. “She had this perspective. However then we matched and we messaged and I used to be like, ‘This lady is so candy.’ We began messaging on a regular basis.”
5 days later, they spoke on the cellphone for the primary time. “The second I heard her voice, I used to be like, ‘wow, that is one thing,’” Mr. Henriksson stated.
In mid-January 2019, they went on their first date, which was drinks at Primo’s in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood. “We solely had two drinks every, and but sat there speaking for 5 hours,” Ms. Voyatzakis stated. “We didn’t need it to finish.”
That evening, Ms. Voyatzakis wrote in her journal, “I lastly received it proper.”
Their second and third dates have been delayed till February as a result of Mr. Henriksson had surgical procedure to take away his knowledge enamel. And their fourth date needed to wait till early March as he was touring in Italy on trip in late February.
However the two grew to become unique on that fourth date. Saying “I like you” adopted in April. And in Might 2019, Mr. Henriksson started spending each evening at Ms. Voyatzakis’s condominium within the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, earlier than making it official in February 2020, after his lease in Jersey Metropolis, N.J., was up. The couple now stay in Brooklyn Heights.
Ms. Voyatzakis, 37, who grew up within the Boston suburbs, sells antiques and classic objects by her enterprise, Alekka. She has a bachelor’s diploma in English from Emmanuel School in Boston.
Mr. Henriksson, 33, is a income accounting operations supervisor at Spotify in New York. He has a bachelor’s diploma in accountancy from California State College in Los Angeles and an authorized public accountant license in New York. He grew up in Tyreso, Sweden, simply exterior of Stockholm.
Ms. Voyatzakis had all the time wished to get engaged in Italy, due to her affinity for the nation. It didn’t harm that she has a deep love for historic buildings. “She received me into historic houses,” Mr. Henriksson stated. “We go to them in New York.”
In early 2021, considering {that a} marriage proposal couldn’t be too far off, Ms. Voyatzakis had already designed a diamond engagement ring. However the pandemic was making European journey a problem.
So, on July 27, 2021, throughout a visit to the Hamptons, Mr. Henriksson proposed to Ms. Voyatzakis utilizing that ring at Wölffer Property, a winery in Sagaponack, N.Y. “Not historic,” Mr. Henriksson stated, “however it appeared like an Italian winery.”
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The couple married on April 26 on the Workplace of the Metropolis Clerk in Manhattan by Guohuan Zhang, supervisor and officiant of the Marriage Bureau. Mr. Henriksson stated it was surreal, “to marry the love of my life, within the metropolis the place we met, not too removed from the place we had our first date.”
In attendance have been Ms. Voyatzakis’s dad and mom and a cousin, Gregory S. Kamelakis, who served as their photographer, in addition to the couple’s canine, Lily, a Morkie.
“Throughout our photographs, a bus crammed with non-U. S. highschool college students pulled up and filed out and all started clapping and cheering,” Ms. Voyatzakis stated. “It was so lovable.”
A bigger, three-day celebration in Greece, the place Ms. Voyatzakis’s household is from, will comply with over the Memorial Day weekend. “We take into account that our official marriage ceremony,” Ms. Voyatzakis stated.
The occasion, with 80 company anticipated to attend, will embrace a symbolic ceremony, led by Mr. Kamelakis, at a Nineteenth-century property known as the Queen’s Tower, a former royal property close to Athens, which the couple identified, is ideal for historical past fans.
“Since our marriage ceremony in Greece shall be considerably giant, we felt like this gave us a while to be quiet and take all of it in,” Ms. Voyatzakis stated. “Having our canine Lily with us was the cherry on prime of all of it as she received’t be making the journey to Greece with us.”
