Carol-Anne Drescher and Robert McMahon Carroll were musicians in the same wedding band for more than a year before their own love story began.

Both had joined the Dane Wright Band of Hank Lane Music, a production company that coordinates live bands, in April 2019 and met on their first gig that month at the Mansion at Oyster Bay, in Woodbury, N.Y. Mr. Carroll joined as the keyboard player, and Ms. Drescher is a singer for the group.

“We were filling a void for two members who got married to each other and moved,” Ms. Drescher said. “I found Rob intimidating, because he was very stone-faced and had a few tattoos.”

Mr. Carroll, though, was attracted to Ms. Drescher. “When I looked at Carol-Anne, I thought, ‘Uh-oh, I’m in trouble.’”

“Every time I tried to talk to Rob, he gave me one-word answers and didn’t engage,” Ms. Drescher, 32, said.

Mr. Carroll, 33, said he had found Ms. Drescher “too forward and loud.”

The two became friends that August when Mr. Carroll drove Ms. Drescher to her apartment in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood after a wedding job in Montauk, N.Y. During the three-hour ride, they discovered their shared interests in reading, weight lifting and alternative rock.

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They began chatting outside of work, by text and phone, usually late into the night. “We used to send each other memes or swap names of cool books we had read,” Ms. Drescher said. “Rob had become a part of my daily life, and eventually, we started hanging out in person.”

Ms. Drescher had recently moved to New York from Annapolis, Md., and Mr. Carroll, who lived in New Hyde Park, N.Y., helped her explore her new home. “Rob used to take me to museums like MoMA and his favorite bars and restaurants,” she said.

Mr. Carroll and Ms. Drescher also performed together at social and corporate events under the name Dane Wright, which is unrelated to their roles in the wedding band.

Their relationship turned romantic on Dec. 15, 2020, when they attended a mutual friend’s birthday party near New Hyde Park. “It got too late for Carol-Anne to take the train to Manhattan, so I offered for her to spend the night on my couch,” Mr. Carroll said. “When we got to my place, we talked and talked and couldn’t get enough of each other.”

At one point, Ms. Drescher grabbed Mr. Carroll’s hands and leaned in to kiss him. “I was worried about ruining our friendship, but the feeling was so strong,” she said. “Luckily, Rob was receptive and kissed me back passionately.”

Ms. Drescher knew she wanted to marry Mr. Carroll when she watched him sing the Chris Stapleton country love song “Tennessee Whiskey” at a wedding in January 2021. “His voice was beautiful, and he looked so sincere,” she said.

Ms. Drescher, who grew up in Annapolis, is a full-time musician who sings and plays several instruments, including the piano, drums, and bass guitar. She has a bachelor’s degree in music from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., and another, in nursing, from Farmingdale State College on Long Island.

Mr. Carroll is also a full-time musician who sings and plays several instruments, including the piano, guitar and drums, and performs at Catholic masses and funerals in Long Beach. He has a bachelor’s degree in music performance from Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y.

When wedding season slowed in February and March 2021, the couple got closer but kept their courtship a secret from bandmates. They spent their days at Mr. Carroll’s home, cooking, watching movies and reading books. “Carol-Anne pretty much lived with me without it being official,” Mr. Carroll said. “It was clear that we were soul mates.”

When weddings picked up again in late April, and the two had no doubt about their commitment, they let their bandmates in on their romance. That same month, they moved into an apartment in Westbury, N.Y.

They became engaged on Aug. 14, 2023. Ms. Drescher walked into their living room to find Mr. Carroll on his knees, holding a box with the diamond ring that they had picked out months before.

In May 2024, the couple bought what they described as their “dream home,” a waterfront three-bedroom colonial, in Lindenhurst, N.Y. In another milestone, Ms. Drescher graduated from nursing school; she plans to pursue a career in the field while continuing as a musician.

They married on March 7, before 140 guests at the Mansion at Oyster Bay, where they had performed in their first wedding together. Michelle LaRosa, who was ordained by After Hours Wedding Ministry, officiated.

During the reception, Mr. Carroll surprised Ms. Drescher and the crowd with a recording of a slow love ballad he had written for her, called “The One.” “The song is about finding that perfect person, which Carol-Anne is,” Mr. Carroll said.

Sydney Chineze Mokel began working at the Conservation Law Foundation in Boston in April 2020. Since she couldn’t meet her co-workers in person because of the pandemic, she asked a dozen of them for virtual coffee dates.

Tommaso Elijah Wagner was the only one who booked a full hour.

“What are we going to talk about for that long?” she said she had wondered.

As it turned out, they found quite a bit to discuss, including the fact that both had studied Mandarin in college. At the foundation, she was working as a foundation relations coordinator; he was a program assistant.

The two, both 28, didn’t actually meet face to face until Halloween, when they were invited by a co-worker to attend the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where masks were mandatory and distancing was recommended.

Their collaboration on a staff initiative during Black History Month in February 2021 had them discussing Black joy and Afrofuturism and meeting in person at Kung Fu Tea, near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass., to exchange books. (She lent him “I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey,” by Langston Hughes; he lent her “The Fifth Season” by N.K. Jemisin.)

At their third book swap, in April, they met at the Loring Greenough House in the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain. Mr. Wagner brought homemade iced tea, while Ms. Mokel brought cookies she had baked.

“I realized I had a raging crush on him that just appeared out of nowhere,” Ms. Mokel, who goes by Chi, said. At the end of that third meeting, she asked if their next hangout could be a date.

They planned to visit the Museum of Fine Arts a week later, followed by a dinner at Thaitation, a restaurant in the Fenway neighborhood. Mr. Wagner decided he didn’t want to wait that long. Ms. Mokel was having a yard sale, and a day or two before their date, he stopped by.

They soon found that they “fell into these rhythms that complemented each other,” Ms. Mokel said.

While Ms. Mokel was already sure of her feelings for Mr. Wagner, their relationship was tested in late August 2021, when Ms. Mokel faced a hellish move from her home in Jamaica Plain to Cambridge. Mr. Wagner proved his mettle, getting out of bed at 6 a.m. to pilot the U-Haul. He brought her candy, too.

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Two years later, In September 2023, she moved in with Mr. Wagner, to Somerville, Mass., where they live today. They proposed to each other the following month.

Mr. Wagner recreated their third book swap, but put a ring inside the book at the Loring Greenough House, while Ms. Mokel had friends and family gather in their apartment as a surprise — both in person and on Zoom — for when they returned.

Though Ms. Mokel had taken a new job in December 2022, most of their colleagues only learned of their relationship after they were engaged.

“I love how grounded Chi is, her deep knowledge of herself and her confidence in the person she is,” Mr. Wagner said. “I love her laugh, her eyes, and her smile.”

Ms. Mokel is the associate director of foundation relations at the Museum of Science in Boston. She has a bachelor’s degree from Northeastern University in international affairs.

Mr. Wagner is studying for a master’s degree in urban planning and policy at Northeastern and is an intern at the Boston-based Utile Architecture & Planning. He has a bachelor’s degree in environmental policy from Colby College.

Ms. Mokel’s father is a Nigerian immigrant of the Igbo tribe and her mother is African-American; she was raised Episcopalian. Mr. Wagner’s mother is of Jewish and Chinese ancestry, while his father is of English and German descent. His mother is culturally Jewish, while his father, who was an Episcopalian, is now a Buddhist.

The couple noticed similarities in Jewish and Igbo traditions — the shared reverence for humor and storytelling — and sought to incorporate both cultures into their wedding ceremony.

They were married in front of 235 guests at Robbins Memorial Town Hall in Arlington, Mass., on March 8, by Rabbi Jen Gubitz, the founder of Modern Jewish Couples, an organization catering to interfaith and intercultural partners. The pair wore western dress for the ceremony — the bride in a vintage white gown she had bought secondhand on Poshmark — and changed into a Nigerian aso ebi dress, in forest green and gold, for the reception.

Appetizers included hot and sour soup and egg rolls, potato knishes and akara, Nigerian black-eyed pea fritters.

Before dinner, the bride’s oldest uncle blessed a kola nut, an Igbo tradition symbolizing unity. The couple danced the hora to Harry Belafonte’s “Hava Nagila,” as guests showered the couple with cash, a Nigerian wedding tradition known as the money spray.

“Tommaso is a charming mix of sweet and stubborn,” Ms. Mokel said. “Also, he has joined my family easily with an openness to embracing new cultural traditions and foods.”