12 ST + THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, AUGUST 9, 2020When the coronavirus forced Claire
Benjamin and Henry Fineberg to
rethink their original wedding plans,
they decided to elope in Colorado,
choosing June 27 as a new date for their nuptials.
But as it turned out, that summer day brought
enough snow and powerful winds to turn the
couple’s ceremony into the kind of adventure they
hadn’t planned on.
“The wind was so fierce, making it nearly im-
possible for Henry to hold onto his wedding vows,
which he had written on a piece of paper, and it
also ripped my veil off my head,” said Ms. Ben-
jamin, who was able to retrieve it.
To make matters worse, the temperature had
dropped about 20 degrees, slipping into the low
40s.
“We also knew that there was a thunderstorm
filled with lightning heading our way,” Ms. Ben-
jamin added. “So we had to get out of there as
soon as possible.”
Ms. Benjamin, 28, a communications manager
at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biol-
ogy at the University of Illinois, and Mr. Fineberg,
32, a pilot for SkyWest Airlines based at Chicago’s
O’Hare International Airport, were married atop a
mountain stretching 13,000 feet into ominous
clouds at Buckskin Pass, in White River National
Forest near Aspen.
They were part of a five-person wedding party
that began the day on a hiking trail, at an eleva-
tion point of 10,000 feet. From there, the bride and
groom and their guests, proceeded to climb for
four hours, ascending some 3,000 feet to reach the
summit — at nearly 13,000 feet.
“Claire’s love of nature and adventure hooked
me right off the bat,” said Mr. Fineberg. But he
wasn’t exactly planning on the kind of adventure
that unfolded during their exchange of vows
before Jessica Haglund, who was ordained by
American Marriage Ministries to lead the ceremo-
ny.
Their wedding was originally scheduled for
Sept. 6 at Homer Lake Forest Preserve near
Homer, Ill., with 120 invited guests.
Ms. Haglund was in the company of her dog,
Rúna, a two-year-old shepard-husky mix, as well
as two other friends of the couple, Jordan Goebig,
who served as a wedding photographer, and her
husband, Adam Rahn, a videographer.
“We changed into our wedding clothes when we
got up there,” said Ms. Benjamin, who graduated
from the University of Illinois, where she also
received a master’s degree in advertising.
“Henry forgot his shirt but decided to still wear
his tie,” said Ms. Benjamin, laughing, “until I told
him to take it off.”
Mr. Fineberg, who also graduated from the
University of Illinois and received an associate
degree in aviation from Parkland College’s Insti-
tute of Aviation in Savoy, Ill., said it was also Ms.
Benjamin’s “warmth and kindness,” that stood out
when they met on Tinder in November 2016.
After exchanging notes, it appeared as though
Ms. Benjamin had for years inadvertently stalked
Mr. Fineberg, who then lived in a 400-square foot,
garden-level apartment located in Urbana, Ill.,
next door to the home of Ms. Benjamin’s best
friend, August Schiess.
Ms. Benjamin said she would often peek into
Mr. Fineberg’s rather eccentric apartment, and
with each peek, she would try to imagine what the
man who lived in such a small space, illuminated
by an antler chandelier and year-round Christmas
lights, might be like.
She eventually got her answer. “In a way, he’s
more than I could have ever possibly imagined,”
Ms. Benjamin said. “He has a zest for life that I
have never seen in anyone before.”
The day after they met on Tinder, Mr. Fineberg
arrived at Ms. Benjamin’s home in Champaign,
Ill., to attend her 1920s-themed birthday party. He
wore khakis, a suit jacket, an aeronautical-themed
tie, and an Akubra Australian cowboy hat.
They hit it off and began dating immediately.
“Before I left the party that night, I asked her
out,” Mr. Fineberg said. “She was just so wonder-
ful, and in so many different ways that there was
no sense in wasting time.”
VINCENT M. MALLOZZIClaire Benjamin,
Henry Fineberg
................................................................................................................................................................................................................
For a Summer Wedding, Some Snow in the Forecast
Danielle Day was watching her
bridesmaids get their hair and make-
up done a few hours before her July
18 wedding when the alert came in.
“I looked at my phone and said, ‘Oh, there’s a
structure fire,’ ” she said. Her four wedding at-
tendants, in various states of updos, sensed what
was coming. “My sister tried to hand me a mimo-
sa and said: ‘Here, drink this. You’ll be fine.’ ”
But Ms. Day, a volunteer firefighter, had al-
ready made up her mind about how she would
respond to the blaze in Phelps, N.Y., where she
lives. “I told them, ‘I’ll make a deal with you,’ ”
she recalled. “ ‘If Zach gets there and it’s nothing,
I won’t go. If he gets there and calls in other
departments, I’m going.’ ”
She went.
Ms. Day, 35, met Zachary Rey, 26, in 2013, just
after she started volunteering at the Oaks Cor-
ners Volunteer Fire Company in Oaks Corner,
N.Y., with her sister, Patti Day. “Patti brought me
there a couple times, and I could see it was a
really good group of guys helping out in this small
town,” she said.
Mr. Rey, 18 at the time, stood out. “I wasn’t sure
if he would notice me because of our age differ-
ence, but he seemed really mature, like he had an
old soul. I loved that about him.”
Months of group hangouts with their fellow
volunteers at Denny’s and Dunkin’ Donuts
brought them closer, until summer 2014, when
Ms. Day felt comfortable enough to call Mr. Rey
and ask if he wanted to help her decorate Patti’s
house for a baby shower.
“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing,” she said.
When they arrived at her sister’s house in Ge-
neva, N.Y., though, the door was locked. “So we
drove around in my 2004 maroon Grand Am, all
through the district we were familiar with as
firefighters, and I got him to open up a little. He’s
a pretty quiet guy.”
By 2015, they were in love and moving toward
building a life together with Ms. Day’s two chil-
dren from a previous relationship. Her son,
Lance, is 14; her daughter, Remedi, is 11.
Though their work at Oaks Corners sometimes
overlapped, they spent their days apart at paid
jobs, his as a securement specialist at a trucking
company and hers at North Seneca Ambulance,
where she works in emergency medical services.
By 2018 both were also taking on additional re-
sponsibilities at Oaks Corners. Mr. Rey became
deputy chief and Ms. Day emergency medicalservices captain.
On Aug. 18, 2018, on their annual camping visit
to the Adirondacks, Mr. Rey proposed. The coro-
navirus did not get in the way of the July 2020
wedding for 100 they planned for their backyard
in Phelps, though they hadn’t anticipated the
masks and social distancing.
Both were hoping for no fires on July 18. But
experience had prepared them in the event one
broke out.
“We’ve had to drop everything at birthday
parties and during holidays,” Ms. Day said.
“That’s just how the cookie crumbles.”
So when Mr. Rey barreled off to start battling
what turned out to be a two-alarm fire in Phelps
at 11 a.m., Ms. Day was not flustered. “I was
actually OK with it,” she said. The wedding, to be
officiated by their friend Sara VanCamp, who was
ordained by the Universal Life Church for the
occasion, was set for 4 p.m.
While Mr. Rey supervised putting out the fire
inside and Ms. Day handled medical care for
firefighters outside, both were mindful they had a
schedule to adhere to. Ms. Day left the scene at 1
p.m., and Mr. Rey around 2. “I was keeping an eye
on the time,” he said.
After they said their “I dos,” they reflected on
the events of the day.
“We were actually proud that we got to go put
out that fire,” Ms. Day said. “Yes, it was our wed-
ding day. But we were able to go and help some-
body on their worst day, on our best day.”
TAMMY La GORCEKATIE STANZAKDanielle Day,
Zach Rey................................................................................................................................................................................................................Just Get Us to the Fire on Time
When Victoria Michelotti first saw
Alán Weinfeld in October 2010, he was
sitting at a Manhattan bar with an-
other woman — his mother.
“I thought that was just so adorable,” said Ms.
Michelotti, 34 and the director of brand strategy
and new market development at the Cambridge
Information Group, an investment firm in New
York.
Mr. Weinfeld, 45, found her equally adorable,
which is why he asked Ms. Michelotti if she would
take a photo of him standing alongside his
mother, who was there to help her son settle into
a Manhattan apartment as he had recently re-
turned from a financial job he held in Vienna the
previous three years.
“It was my way of trying to start a conversa-
tion with her,” said Mr. Weinfeld, now a partner in
Invesco Private Capital in New York. “Once we
did start talking, my mother kept saying over and
over again how impressed she was with Victoria.”
Ms. Michelotti and Mr. Weinfeld exchanged
phone numbers and were soon out on a first date.
Mr. Weinfeld, a Mexico City native, took Ms.
Michelotti out for Mexican food and wowed her
with his fluency in Spanish and tequila expertise.
“I found him to be an extremely cultured and
creative person,” said Ms. Michelotti, who gradu-
ated from Dartmouth and received an M.B.A.
from N.Y.U. “He was just a super-interesting
person, and we had such a great time that night.”
A second date seemed all but certain, but it
never happened, as both had left town for ex-
tended work trips and simply lost touch.
“It was just one of those things,” said Mr. Wein-
feld, who graduated magna cum laude from Tu-
lane, and is also a chartered financial analyst.
“Sometimes, life just gets in the way.”
Seven years later, in January 2017, Ms. Mi-
chelotti was on a ski slope in Park City, Utah,
when she spotted a familiar face.
“It was Alán, I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “He
was just as handsome as ever.”
They resumed the conversation they started in
New York, when Ms. Michelotti and Mr. Weinfeld
were both single. Although sparks were flying at
their unexpected reunion, both were now in-
volved in serious relationships, and parted ways
once more.
The following year, fate allowed them one last
opportunity to get together when they ran into
each other during a happy hour at a Midtown bar.
“This time, I saw her first,” Mr. Weinfeld said.“I made a beeline for her and we started catching
up again.”
One update in particular put a smile on both of
their faces; they were both unattached, setting
the stage for the two of them to finally start dat-
ing.
Five months into their relationship, however,
Ms. Michelotti started to wonder where their
relationship was going. At that time, she was
traveling to São Paulo, Brazil, to speak at a con-
ference and suggested that perhaps the distance
would be good for them and that they should take
the time apart to reflect on what they both
wanted and to reconnect when she returned to
New York.
Mr. Weinfeld, sensing that Ms. Michelotti was
slipping away once again, booked the next flight
out to São Paulo and sneaked into Ms. Michelot-
ti’s conference. He sat in the audience and
stunned her when he raised his hand to ask a
question at the end of her presentation.
Ms. Michelotti was re-energized by Mr. Wein-
feld’s over-the-top gesture, and after another year
of dating, he proposed to her during a surprise
trip to Marrakesh, Morocco, on New Year’s Day
2020.
They were married July 31 by Judge Cordilia
Montoya at the Santa Fe County Commission
Chambers in Santa Fe, N.M.
“Things worked out the way they were sup-
posed to all along,” Ms. Michelotti said. “There is
no one else I’d rather spend the rest of my life
with.”VINCENT M. MALLOZZIJENN MAUERVictoria Michelotti,
Alán Weinfeld................................................................................................................................................................................................................Raising His Hand, and Then Winning Hers
WEDDINGSEric Wasserman Stern and Evan
Michael Zuzik figure they have eaten
more than a thousand scoops of ice
cream together, at least.
“Our favorite place is Mitchell’s in Cleveland,”
said Mr. Stern, where they had lived before mov-
ing to Durham, N.C., in 2019. Mr. Stern’s go-to
flavors were amaretto cookie, when it was in
season, and peanut butter chocolate chunk. Mr.
Zuzik (left) always tried something different.
The two met in May 2017 around midnight
while dancing with friends at the Twist Social
Club, a gay bar on Cleveland’s West Side. Mr.
Stern spotted Mr. Zuzik’s neon-colored wristband,
which he also had on from an earlier Mix social
and cultural event that first Friday evening of the
month at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
“He came up to me and tried yelling over the
music,” said Mr. Zuzik, who later drove him home,
and they exchanged numbers. Within 12 hours
they had their first date at a Mexican restaurant,
then a stop at Piccadilly Artisan Creamery for
liquid nitrogen ice cream.
“Evan couldn’t stop smiling,” said Mr. Stern,
who had only been in Cleveland a few months
working as the finance director for the Democrat-
ic candidate for state attorney general. “ I felt so
comfortable and happy. That feeling hasn’t
abated.”
Mr. Stern, 27, is now based in Durham as the
campaign manager for North Carolina’s attorney
general, Josh Stein, a Democrat, in Raleigh. Mr.
Stern graduated summa cum laude from Yale,
from which he received a simultaneous master’s
degree in political science.
Mr. Zuzik, 33, is a biology and an international
baccalaureate environmental studies teacher at
Hillside High School in Durham. He graduated
from Denison University in Granville, Ohio, with
two degrees, one in biology and another in music
performance, and received a master’s degree in
environmental studies from Cleveland State.
“I wanted to introduce him to everything I
loved in Cleveland,” said Mr. Zuzik, who moved
there in 2009 to go to school and work at the
Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.
Within two weeks they were seriously dating,
and soon began pursuing their passion for ice
cream at home and away.
They tried five different places in three days in
Seattle where they had orange habanero cookie
dough at Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream, the
popular cherimoya flavor while in Peru and the
original 100-year-old tutti frutti blend at Leopold’s
Ice Cream in Savannah, Ga.
After Mr. Stern’s candidate lost the Ohio race in
2018, he landed his current job in North Carolina,
and moved to Durham in January 2019 while Mr.
Zuzik joined him six months later after finishing
up the school year.
“We explored every ice cream parlor we could
find in the Triangle,” said Mr. Stern, referring to
Durham, Raleigh and Chapel Hill.
On May 19, 2019, a month before Mr. Zuzik
joined him in Durham, Mr. Stern proposed at Mr.
Zuzik’s old stomping ground — the Cleveland
Metropark Zoo — where he had enlisted the help
of Bo, a sulphur-crested cockatoo, and his handler
Charlotte Petrie, a friend of Mr. Zuzik’s.
At the entrance Bo, perched on a T-stand,
presented a card in his beak to Mr. Zuzik. On it
was written: “Will you marry me?” They later
celebrated with a scoop each from Mitchell’s —
Mr. Stern with peanut butter chocolate chunk and
Mr. Zuzik with lemon black raspberry yogurt.
The grooms originally planned to get married
at the Pittsburgh Opera House, sometime after
the November election, with 200 guests. Instead
they were married July 24 in Mr. Zuzik’s parents’
backyard in Canfield, Ohio, where Mr. Zuzik’s
father had constructed a huppah. Rabbi Yael
Dadoun officiated before immediate family. Ice
cream wasn’t on the menu, but Mr. Zuzik’s mother
made Heath bar cheese cake topped with caramel
sauce, Mr. Stern’s favorite, and “the only thing
better,” he said, “than a scoop from Mitchell’s.”
“It was easy and fun,” said Mr. Zuzik of the
smaller ceremony. “Just like how our relationship
has always been.”ROSALIE R. RADOMSKYMELISSA MOLITERNOEric Stern,
Evan Zuzik
................................................................................................................................................................................................................
A Little Birdie Told Him
Vows