Parallel Lives Converge, With Help From an App

Daniil Kalyuzhny and Nina Naydenova disagree about the mother nature of their very first assembly. In 2016, Mr. Kalyuzhny, then an M.B.A. college student at Cornell College, attended a recruiting celebration for business enterprise college pupils at J.P. Morgan Chase & Organization, wherever Ms. Naydenova is an govt director of mergers and acquisitions. She describes the come across as an job interview, though he considers it more of an interrogation. What they do concur on is that not even the faintest spark flew.

“Nina questioned me concerns rapid fireplace on why I preferred to be a banker,” Mr. Kalyuzhny recalled. “Let’s just say the conference was intimidating, and no sparks flew, just sweat.”

Mr. Kalyuzhny, 33, is now a vice president of financial investment banking at Financial institution of The usa Merrill Lynch. A graduate of Manhattan University with a M.B.A. from Cornell, he immigrated to America with his relatives from Odessa, Ukraine, when he was 2, settling in Passaic, N.J. and later on relocating to Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Ms. Naydenova, 33, is a graduate of Cornell and first arrived to America with her mother and brother, adhering to her father, from Etropole, Bulgaria, when she was 6. When she was 8, alongside with her mom and brother, she went again to Bulgaria for a year for the reason that of visa troubles, returning to The united states for great when she was 9 and settling in Clifton, N.J., a mile from Passaic.

Following reconnecting on the relationship app The League, Mr. Kalyuzhny and Ms. Naydenova went on a very first day to Expensive Irving, a bar in Gramercy Park, in May 2017. More than 4 hrs, he experienced 4 cocktails she, a glass of white wine. Ms. Naydenova remaining pondering she’d like to see Mr. Kalyuzhny yet again, but she played it great.

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“I was not obtaining my hopes up,” Ms. Naydenova reported. “I had been courting a lot and I was super jaded.”

On their 2nd date, they picnicked in Central Park. Much more informal dates followed, then Mr. Kalyuzhny upped the ante by suggesting they expend a very long weekend in Jamaica more than the July 4 vacation. Right after stalling very long adequate for the airfare to enhance, Ms. Naydenova agreed. The journey would solidify their relationship.

Mr. Kalyuzhny is Jewish and Ms. Naydenova is Orthodox Christian, however neither arrive from religious family members. They cite their time at Cornell and careers in finance as plain commonalities, along with their shared immigrant knowledge.

“Although we grew up here and primarily move as American, our families are not,” reported Ms. Naydenova, whose native language, Bulgarian, is prepared in the exact Cyrillic alphabet as Mr. Kalyuzhny’s indigenous language, Russian.

By August 2019, they ended up living jointly in a West Village loft and Mr. Kalyuzhny requested Ms. Naydenova to block out some time on her calendar for a further picnic. When she was functioning out, he extra a new page to a marriage scrapbook she held, proposing the all-critical concern.

As they picnicked on a knoll overlooking the West Aspect Freeway, Ms. Naydenova flipped by means of the scrapbook. When she bought to the recently included web page, Mr. Kalyuzhny pulled out a ring. Later on, the couple returned to their loft, where close friends shocked them with a pyramid of Ladurée macarons, 1 of Ms. Naydenova’s favourite confections.

They originally planned to marry in July 2020, but postponed because of the Coronavirus — initial to July 2021, then once more to Sept. 11, when the couple was married right before around 100 vaccinated guests in a socially-distant ceremony at Chelsea Piers. The Rev. Susanna Stefanachi Macomb, an interfaith minister ordained by the New Seminary, officiated.

“Nina just feels like my true spouse in each and every way,” explained Mr. Kalyuzhny.

“I can be completely myself with Daniil,” Ms. Naydenova explained. “Even when I’m unusual and awkward.”