In November 2020, Andrew Quintero rented Blu Mar, a seafood restaurant in the Hamptons, to host a large dinner party in hopes that Sophia Farah Babai would attend. That night he watched Ms. Babai’s friends walk in, but she wasn’t among them. Again.
“I was always hoping that she would show,” Mr. Quintero said.
Mr. Quintero first noticed Ms. Babai in a mutual friend’s Instagram story in 2016, when he was a freshman at Quinnipiac University and she was a freshman at the State University of New York at Albany. He asked that friend, Janice Murphy, for an introduction, but it would take four years for that moment to come.
So Mr. Quintero, who became affectionately known as “Gatsby” among Ms. Babai’s friends, began hosting lavish gatherings in hopes of meeting her, as the titular character of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” does as part of his campaign to impress the wealthy socialite, Daisy Buchanan.
There were suite boxes for basketball games at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, dinners and concerts to which he would casually ask mutual friends to bring Ms. Babai — to no avail.
Finally, in early 2020, Ms. Murphy, the mutual friend who posted the 2016 Instagram story, planned drinks at Tao Downtown in Manhattan. Mr. Quintero had no plans to make the hourlong drive from Long Island, where he lived, to join. But when he learned Ms. Babai would be there, he got in his car.
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Once at the restaurant, Mr. Quintero, now 26, and Ms. Babai, 25, discovered they had much in common. Both grew up in close-knit immigrant families. Ms. Babai and her mother immigrated to the United States from Cyprus when she was 13; Mr. Quintero’s mother is from Peru and his father is from Colombia. Ms. Babai, who is also of Persian descent, was impressed with his taste in restaurants, their dovetailing musical interests, like R&B, and a love of travel.
Ms. Babai is not a “social butterfly,” she said, but the conversation flowed easily with Mr. Quintero. “I was so intrigued and just kept thinking about it.”
And yet, she wasn’t interested in pursuing anything beyond friendship at that point.
Mr. Quintero found ways to stay in touch. Most notably, he had Ms. Babai introduce him to her boss, Joseph Calabrese, the owner of a lighting design and fencing company, to talk about opportunities to work with his business, Quintero Enterprises.
“Little did I know at the time, this was just another step to get closer to me,” said Ms. Babai, who coordinated their phone calls and joined business dinners.
Shortly after Mr. Quintero’s sold his medical supply startup, StratfordMED, in February 2019, he began expanding his investment company, Quintero Enterprises, with portfolio companies VaxSource and Ancore. He started StratfordMED while at Quinnipiac, and left after his first semester to grow the business; he went on to invest in real estate and logistics companies. He grew up in Westbury, N.Y.
Ms. Babai, who grew up in Smithtown, N.Y. after immigrating, graduated from SUNY with a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance. After doing some accounting and executive assistant work for Mr. Calabrese, she founded Peachy Pilates in October 2023 in Port Washington, N.Y.
In early December 2020, several months after meeting, the two had their first date at Napper Tandy’s Irish Pub in Smithtown. It was the first time they were alone, and they talked for hours over wings and pumpkin beer.
After that date, things moved quickly. Mr. Quintero hosted his company’s holiday party later that month, in part to debut as a couple and introduce Ms. Babai to his parents. Within their first year together, they traveled to Florida, Dubai and Greece. The following year, Mr. Quintero bought a house in Smithtown and Ms. Babai eventually moved in.
In his usual fashion, Mr. Quintero wanted to do something “big,” he said, for the proposal in October 2023, so he rented out Barclays Center and convinced Ms. Babai to join him for what he said was an awards ceremony for women in business. As Ms. Babai entered the empty arena, she was greeted by pictures of them together on jumbotrons, flowers and a group of singers performing “Say Yes to Heaven” by Lana Del Rey.
As Mr. Quintero got down on one knee, he said, “I have been waiting for this moment since the day I met you.”
They were married on Aug. 24 at the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine in downtown Manhattan with around 200 guests in attendance. The ceremony was officiated by Rev. Patricia Moschos, a priest in the Greek Orthodox Church; Mr. Quintero, who was Catholic, converted to marry Ms. Babai. The reception at the Plaza Hotel was Gatsby-like in its grandeur; the Sarafina’s, a New York-based precision dance group, were among the performers.
Mr. Quintero said he pursued Ms. Babai because he believed in making choices to find love: “It doesn’t just happen.”
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