‘Co-Conspirators and Playmates From the Get-Go’

Jennifer Douglas and Kent Shell have been each delighting of their lives after weathering divorce once they met in the summertime of 2014 on OkCupid.

There was one thing about Mr. Shell’s profile that caught Ms. Douglas’s eye. “I simply fell in love together with his profile image,” she mentioned, including, “I’m not one to fall in love simply.”

So Ms. Douglas, 58, who had made a number of on-line connections earlier than, although most of them fleeting, despatched him a cursory message: “You’re cute!”

Mr. Shell, 65, was tickled by Ms. Douglas’s playful and simple tone. Different ladies he had interacted with had been extra scrutinizing, taking him to job for his said intention of not desirous to marry once more.

Like Ms. Douglas, who had divorced 4 years earlier after 17 years of marriage, Mr. Shell was coping with the dissolution of a protracted marriage; his lasted practically 30 years. After his separation in 2011, he moved into an condo in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, and made the deliberate selection to not date for awhile. As a substitute, he took inventory of what he wished out of life at this surprising stage.

“Together with all of the heartbreak of a protracted marriage ending, I found the fun and beauties of simply having the ability to go searching, after the entire world crashed round me, and understand that I used to be nonetheless standing,” he mentioned.

He delved into newfound passions, turning one of many rooms in his dwelling into an artwork studio, which he used to color and write. And although Mr. Shell, who acquired a bachelor of wonderful arts diploma at Virginia Commonwealth College and works as a development administrator at Daniel Frisch Structure in Manhattan, loved his independence, he finally discovered that he missed feminine companionship. He joined OkCupid hoping to foster connections, for friendship and intimacy, if just for finite quantities of time.

He and Ms. Douglas had a quick, banter-fueled change on-line earlier than agreeing to satisfy in individual at Climate Up, a cocktail bar in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, not removed from the place every lived. Whereas strolling to the date, Ms. Douglas started to concern that the promising spark she felt on-line wouldn’t translate to actual life — till she noticed Mr. Shell standing on the bar, smiling.

“She simply regarded magical, on this flouncy costume,” Mr. Shell mentioned. “I felt this pleasure after I noticed her.”

Ms. Douglas’s knees buckled. And she or he curtsied.

The pair ordered drinks and claimed a nook sales space, the place they fell into rousing dialog, interrupted solely by matches of laughter.

“It was like we have been co-conspirators and playmates from the get-go,” Ms. Douglas mentioned.

Ms. Douglas rapidly fell in love with Mr. Shell’s writing, his sense of marvel and introspective nature. Mr. Shell adored Ms. Douglas’s humor, kindness and sense of journey. One of many issues that resonated most with Ms. Douglas early on was how Mr. Shell contrasted with different divorced males his age, lots of whom, in keeping with her observations, have been fast to seek out new companions.

“I used to be so admiring of the truth that Kent, for 3 years, was doing his job by day, and writing brief tales whereas listening to jazz at night time,” Ms. Douglas mentioned. “He actually appeared to have a eager curiosity in attending to know who he was post-marriage earlier than leaping right into a relationship.”

She had taken comparable, daunting steps to determine who she was as a middle-aged lady exterior of marriage.

“It was a tough battle to put declare to myself post-marriage and really feel entire,” mentioned Ms. Douglas, a director at Revel, a social and occasions platform for girls in midlife. She acquired a bachelor’s diploma from Sarah Lawrence School and a grasp’s diploma from the Columbia College Graduate Faculty of Journalism. “And I did. I used to be entire after I met Kent.”

The pair have been forthcoming about their fears and insecurities. They shared a seasoned understanding of life’s disappointments and heartaches, together with an understanding that such inescapable feelings are higher confronted than stifled. In that very same vein, they rejected sure romantic notions instilled by fairy tales.

“Within the place of rescuing or making an attempt to rescue each other, we’re such noble witnesses and cheerleaders for one another,” Ms. Douglas mentioned. “It simply makes issues extra beautiful understanding that every of us is chargeable for ourselves. The opposite individual goes to take a seat with a accomplice by thick and skinny.”

As their relationship developed, Mr. Shell’s stance on marriage softened. They moved in collectively in 2017, and he felt that he and Ms. Douglas would finally marry. Nevertheless it was Ms. Douglas who demurred. Her ambivalence had nothing to do along with her emotions for Mr. Shell, she mentioned, however a priority that the onerous work she’d executed to redefine herself may very well be tempered by getting remarried.

Mr. Shell trusted Ms. Douglas and took solace in honoring her needs. “I assumed, ‘OK, we get to get up day by day and resolve to be collectively’ and never have the assemble, the contract,” he mentioned.

Ms. Douglas’s change of coronary heart got here in August 2021, after she got here throughout a few of Mr. Shell’s writings, which he had disregarded on his desk, together with a meditation on his future dying. His reflections, which made passing reference to the truth that they weren’t married, have been so stunning that Ms. Douglas discovered herself weeping.

“I’d been so avowedly anti-marriage after which a seed of an concept out of the blue introduced itself in a brand new approach,” she mentioned. “It’s form of like I needed to check my physique for bruises, to see if the anti-marriage bruises nonetheless existed. And there have been no bruises there!”

She added: “I didn’t fairly get, as I get now, that my relationship with Kent solely encourages me to be extra of who I already am.”

Ms. Douglas determined to suggest to Mr. Shell, confessing that she felt considerably devilish planning the shock. “It was nearly transgressive to have this concept after being so against it,” she mentioned.

On the night of Sept. 1, 2021, Ms. Douglas informed Mr. Shell that she wished to go to a brand new (and fictional) Italian restaurant. She deliberate to deliver him to Grand Military Plaza on the fringe of Prospect Park and suggest beneath its stately archway. Upon arriving on the park, and strolling ever farther in the other way of any eating places, Ms. Douglas grew satisfied that Mr. Shell was onto her. In a panic, she dropped to 1 knee — about 30 ft from the arch.

“The exquisitely eloquent proposal I’d mapped out in my head dissolved and all I may blurt out was: ‘Kent, because the second we met, we’ve been in a single never-ending dialog, and I need you to be my husband and I need to be your spouse,’” she mentioned.

Ms. Douglas introduced Mr. Shell with a field containing a twirl of birch bark as a hoop.

“I used to be so surprised,” Mr. Shell mentioned.

The unwieldy, unconventional proposal was befitting a pair that prides itself on embracing “the superbly imperfect” aspects of life.

That notion impressed them to have a “home made wedding ceremony,” inviting friends to contribute a hodgepodge of things and concepts to the festivities, from meals and decorations to spontaneous toasts. It was important, the couple mentioned, to reconnect with family members within the wake of two and a half years of pandemic separation.

“I had this imaginative and prescient of simply desirous to be lifted by our neighborhood,” Mr. Shell mentioned. “And I felt so lifted up simply by everybody collaborating and us giving up a specific amount of management of stuff and leaning again into what our family members wished to deliver into it.”

The outside wedding ceremony occurred Sept. 10 on the Container Home in Tivoli, N.Y., a bucolic venue that hosts artistic retreats and different occasions. The couple’s grownup kids and Ms. Douglas’s dad and mom, Invoice and Andrea Douglas, have been among the many 125 friends in attendance.

Yazmany Arboleda, a good friend of the couple and a Common Life Church minister, officiated, with Amelia Perkins, a good friend who performed a significant half within the day’s planning, collaborating within the ceremony.

Ceremony was essential, Mr. Shell mentioned, as long as it didn’t comprise any distancing layers of ritual. “It wasn’t nearly us, nevertheless it was about neighborhood and form of consecrating ourselves to residing out loud once more,” he mentioned.

The couple’s first dance was to “The Second Time Round,” by Shalamar, a disco hit from the ’70s; its title and lyrics allude to the bittersweet realities of discovering new love later in life, a sentiment articulated in a line from Mr. Shell’s vows. “I really like that we met as absolutely grown beings, with greater than a little bit data of what love is and what loss is, and with a full share of understanding how valuable they each are,” he informed Ms. Douglas.

“It will be devastating to us if our relationship foundered,” Ms. Douglas mentioned. “However we each know, as a result of we’ve each been by stuff, we might every discover a technique to survive and go ahead with good lives with out one another. And that data, curiously sufficient, actually permits me to offer my coronary heart to Kent with out reservation.”

On This Day

When Sept. 10, 2022

The place The Container Home, Tivoli, N.Y.

Group Constructed For the “home made wedding ceremony” ceremony and reception, one good friend made hibiscus iced tea. One other introduced 180 cupcakes, whereas one other grew all of the flowers used within the ceremony in her backyard in Cornwall, Conn.

The Costume The marriage costume, a treasured consignment retailer discover, was embroidered with cranes. Ms. Douglas, who grew up in Japan, shares a selected affinity for what the hen is alleged to signify: good luck and auspiciousness.

Taking the Stage After the ceremony — and a wardrobe grow to be extra informal apparel — the couple made their reintroduction as husband and spouse to the theme track from “The Newlywed Recreation.”

Flower Girls The couple’s three grownup kids — Ms. Douglas’s daughters Madeleine Cravens and Delilah Cravens, and Mr. Shell’s daughter, Lily Zyndorf Shell, in addition to her accomplice, Anna Gebarski — served as flower women. “The concept of subverting the shape and never having flower women be relegated to 3- to 7-year-old women, however 20-something-year-old ladies — we cherished it!” Ms. Douglas mentioned.