After a romantic getaway in Venice in late February 2022, Olha Beskhmelnytsina and Ethan Bregman said their goodbyes and flew home — she to Kyiv, Ukraine, and he to New York City.
The weekend was technically their first date, and after processing his feelings, on Feb. 23, Mr. Bregman texted Ms. Beskhmelnytsina that he cared a lot about her and asked if she wanted to take their budding relationship seriously. Ms. Beskhmelnytsina, a film producer and director, had come home from a movie premiere exhausted that evening and decided to answer him the next morning.
The next day, she woke to the sound of bombs; Russia had launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“I receive this message as my world is turning upside down,” Ms. Beskhmelnytsina said. Still, with all the chaos around her, one thing was clear. “I really want to date him,” she said.
After weighing her options, Ms. Beskhmelnytsina decided to remain in Kyiv to work as a fixer for two photographers, Ron Haviv of The Economist, and Heidi Levine of The Washington Post. (A fixer, or field producer, translates and explains local customs or policies, communicates with local authorities and arranges interviews and logistics for journalists.)
In tandem with that role, she began documenting what she was witnessing in the war zones for a film — the final product, “Overcoming the Darkness,” premiered in June 2022 — and after having hesitated for years, founded a film-production company, 2Brave Productions, with her friend Natalia Libet.
Having to tell Mr. Bregman that she wouldn’t evacuate and would be working in the most dangerous parts of the country, Ms. Beskhmelnytsina said, was “the hardest part of our relationship.” But, she added, “he respected my decision, and for me it was such a key moment that he knew I won’t change my mind and he supported me.”
On the other side of the Atlantic, Mr. Bregman was deeply worried, but wanted Ms. Beskhmelnytsina to do what she thought was right. Still, he said, “I would wake up every morning and check when was the last time she was online.”
This was how he knew she was still alive, even if she hadn’t had a chance to message him.
Ms. Beskhmelnytsina, 38, spent her entire life in Kyiv and has produced more than 30 films and television series. She has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in international economics from the Ukrainian State University of Finance and International Trade, and a second master’s degree in film directing from the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts.
Since 2023, she has been the chairwoman of the Ukrainian Film Academy. One of the recent projects she co-produced is “Intercepted,” a documentary that premiered at the Berlinale International Film Festival in February and interweaves recordings of Russian soldiers speaking on the phone with scenes of life and destruction in Ukraine.
Mr. Bregman, 44, an engine designer for professional motor sport, was born and raised in New York City. He has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Yale, and two master’s degrees, one in electrical engineering from Princeton and one in real estate development from the NYU School of Professional Studies.
At 6, he told his parents he wanted to build cars, and in college, he began working in the industry. He founded an engineering firm, Ayton Performance, in 2004, and since then, cars Ayton has worked on have won at the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans and Rolex 24 at Daytona races, among others.
Ms. Beskhmelnytsina and Mr. Bregman first met in October 2019 at the wedding of a mutual friend, Alina Rudya. At the time, both were in relationships, but that changed by October 2021, when Ms. Rudya invited them to the Spanish island of Majorca to celebrate her and her husband’s second wedding anniversary.
It took Mr. Bregman four days to gather the courage to try to get Ms. Beskhmelnytsina alone.
“My big move was when we were at the marina, I said, ‘Hey, I left my sunscreen at the house, do you want to come with me to the pharmacy to get some?’” Mr. Bregman said. She said yes.
Later that day, when they were at a cafe with their friends, the captain of the boat the group had chartered told them they looked like they were in love and would be married in a few years.
“We had our first kiss that night,” Mr. Bregman said.
Though they were hesitant to engage in a long-distance relationship, the two stayed in touch over Telegram.
“At that point, I was single in my 40s and feeling kind of down on myself, and to find someone who’s cool, but also amazing, talented, thoughtful, successful, and a kind human who was interested in me helped me realize that life wasn’t over,” Mr. Bregman said.
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During the first year of the war, Mr. Bregman supported Ms. Beskhmelnytsina mostly from afar, meeting her in other countries like Poland when she had free time.
“I didn’t want him to come during the first year,” Ms. Beskhmelnytsina said. “I was worried about his parents.” She didn’t want them to fret over his safety if he were to travel to Ukraine.
In October 2022, both of them had a period of intensive travel, in the middle of which Mr. Bregman’s mother, Arlene Slavin, turned 80.
“We could go home and rest, or rent a very small car and travel around Portugal with my parents,” Mr. Bregman recalled saying to Ms. Beskhmelnytsina. “Olha said, ‘Let’s do it!’ We had an amazing trip.”
By the end, Mr. Bregman knew he wanted to marry Ms. Beskhmelnytsina. “You get my family, you get me, you integrate so well,” he said.
For Ms. Beskhmelnytsina’s 37th birthday in December 2022, he asked Mr. Haviv, who was on assignment in Kharkiv with her, to deliver a birthday present: a cashmere sweater to keep her warm when the power and heat were shut off, and her favorite Haribo gummies.
“It was completely dark in Kharkiv at the time, there was shelling, and that morning, Ron knocked on my door with a present from Ethan,” Ms. Beskhmelnytsina said. “It was so sweet.”
Two and a half months later, on Feb. 26, 2023, during a vacation in Italy with friends, Mr. Bregman gathered everyone at the lounge bar at the Hilton Lake Como.
He gave a speech where he thanked their friends for the support they had given Ukraine during the war, then continued.
“Over the last year, Olha and I have been to 17 different countries,” he said. Then he referenced a spreadsheet he’d created for fun and eventually to track government-mandated time limits on their visits to the United States, Europe and Ukraine.
“I looked at it and I realized there’s no one I’d rather go to the remaining countries with than you,” he said to Ms. Beskhmelnytsina before bending to one knee and proposing with a platinum ring he had made by hand.
As everyone toasted with champagne, Ms. Beskhmelnytsina’s best friend, Zoya Lytvyn, whom Mr. Bregman had secretly invited to Como, Italy, popped out of the crowd with a bouquet of sunflowers.
A few months later, in May 2023, Mr. Bregman visited Ukraine for the first time. Now, he and Ms. Beskhmelnytsina split their time equally between Kyiv and New York (a fact that he’s confirmed with his spreadsheet).
The couple were legally married Sept. 7 by Yulia Logai, the director of civil service acts in the Lviv region of Ukraine. Their wedding ceremony on Sept. 14 at the Edem Resort spa in Strilky was led by their friend, Oksana Nechyporenko. Sixty-five guests attended, with about half arriving from outside the country.
The resort is in one of the safer regions of Ukraine, and was also the first place Mr. Bregman visited with Ms. Beskhmelnytsina on his initial trip to Ukraine.
“If we choose to have a wedding in Ukraine, my friends and family can choose to come or not, and if we have a wedding outside of Ukraine, many of her family don’t have the choice,” Mr. Bregman said. “For me it was obvious to give the choice rather than to take it away.”
On the first evening of their celebrations, Mr. Bregman and Ms. Beskhmelnytsina hosted a welcome dinner with traditional Ukrainian dishes like borscht soup and vareniki, a type of dumpling; drinks like horseradish-infused vodka; and folk music. The ceremony was held the next day on a covered terrace and was followed by a cocktail hour in the resort’s palais and a reception in the resort’s grand hall.
Mr. Bregman wore a custom tuxedo by Alan David with a painting by his mother, an accomplished artist, printed on the inner silk lining of the jacket and the waistcoat. Ms. Beskhmelnytsina wore one dress by Pronovias for the ceremony and a second one custom-made by her friend Oksana Ostrovskaya, of the brand Sana, for the reception.
A surprise came a few days earlier when Ms. Beskhmelnytsina learned her cousin, Eugene Kolomyets, a Ukrainian soldier who was injured fighting on the front lines, would arrive from the hospital “just in time to make the wedding,” Mr. Bregman said.
At the ceremony, “he wheeled himself right into the dance floor to join us.”
The party continued into the wee hours.
On This Day
When Sept. 14, 2024
Where Edem Resort & Spa, Strilky, Ukraine
Nods to the USA Ms. Beskhmelnytsina grew up watching American films and wanted to incorporate some of the traditions she had seen into the wedding, including not allowing Mr. Bregman to see her in her dress before the ceremony, serving mini burgers at midnight and having a “getaway car” from which she tossed a bouquet to her friends.
“When we asked about a getaway car, they suggested all these luxury cars,” Mr. Bregman said. “But we’re trying to keep it cozy and friendly, and not showy.” Eventually, they decided on a 1991 burgundy Nissan Figaro.
Animal Signs In a nod to Mr. Bregman’s father’s side of the family, the cake topper was of a blonde woman in a wedding dress with a moose in a tuxedo. “Our family logo is the moose,” Mr. Bregman said. He even has a tattoo of a moose on his leg (as well as a tattoo of one of his mother’s paintings).
From Every Angle Wanting to capture the wedding in a documentary style, Ms. Beskhmelnytsina asked Ms. Rudya, a photographer who introduced her to Mr. Bregman, to coordinate a group of two photographers, one videographer and one drone wrangler.
“Many of Ethan’s friends and my friends can’t be at the wedding, so the photo and video I’ll send to them, I wanted it to be as natural as possible,” Ms. Beskhmelnytsina said.
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