When Nancy Rose Marshall met Christopher Gordon Murphy through mutual friends in the summer of 2015 at an outdoor music festival in Madison, Wis., she was happily in love.
Mr. Murphy, an artist and electrician, was well-known locally because his body-cast sculptures were displayed throughout the city, and she admired his work. “I had actually taken pictures of some of his sculptures the year before and was excited to meet and talk to him,” she said.
“Nancy was in a great dress, and I thought she was very pretty,” Mr. Murphy said. “But since she was with her boyfriend, and I was dating someone, I didn’t let my mind go there.”
As they ran into each other at more music festivals over the next 18 months, they had longer conversations and got to know one another at a “friends level,” they said.
In January 2017, Dr. Marshall’s boyfriend, Jamie Cowles, died suddenly from a heart attack, leaving her in disbelief. “My boyfriend before Jamie had also died of a heart attack, and it was like a really awful movie was replaying itself,” she said.
After staying housebound for several months following Mr. Cowles’s death, Dr. Marshall, who holds a doctorate in art history from Yale, began going out again. “Photography is a hobby of mine, so I used to go to festivals and concerts to take pictures even though I was self-conscious about being alone,” she said. “I saw Chris a few times at these events, and he always made it a point to come up and talk to me.”
“I didn’t want her to feel ostracized” for being alone, Mr. Murphy said. “Plus, she had a very unique style, and I liked how well she dressed.”
The more they conversed, the more Dr. Marshall “noticed” Mr. Murphy, she said. “We exchanged numbers because he volunteered to check out my home electrical system when I mentioned that I was getting shocks from my bathroom faucet,” she said.
Dr. Marshall, 59, lives in a Victorian-era home on Madison’s east side, and at the time, Mr. Murphy, 65, was renting an apartment in the same neighborhood, about a five-minute drive away.
During that visit, they found themselves attracted to the other, but never got personal. “I tried to be as professional as possible,” Mr. Murphy said.
As they began seeing each other regularly at events and with friends over the next three years, Dr. Marshall’s feelings intensified, she said. By then, Mr. Murphy, who goes by Chris or Murph, was single again.
The pandemic was a turning point in their relationship. Both night owls, they began a regular text exchange around midnight that lasted several hours.
When he brought home pet kittens, he invited Dr. Marshall over to meet them. “I was hesitant at first, given the pandemic, but I couldn’t resist how cute they were,” she said.
While she was there, the pair eventually found their way to Mr. Murphy’s living room couch, where they had their first kiss. “I literally went weak in the knees and had to sit back,” Dr. Marshall said.
The two became inseparable from then on.
[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]
They became even closer after two men assaulted them in May 2022 while they were on a trip to Milwaukee, taking their wallets and phones. “Working through the episode together bonded us to another level,” Mr. Murphy said.
But when Dr. Marshall expressed her desire to get married and live together, Mr. Murphy, unsure if he wanted to settle down, resisted. By early 2024, she was tired of his lack of commitment. “Eventually, I told him I had to move on,” she said.
Realizing how much he cared for her, Mr. Murphy said that when Dr. Marshall told him that she wanted to leave him, he had a change of heart. “What Nancy and I had was magic,” he said.
Dr. Marshall is from Wyoming, R.I. She is a specialist in Victorian art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s art history department and an art history professor at the school. She holds a bachelor’s degree in art history from Yale and master’s degrees in art history from Yale and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, in addition to her doctorate.
Mr. Murphy grew up in Munich, Paris and Dallas. He has a bachelor’s degree in art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Mr. Murphy has two children, Devlin, 32, and Amara, 29, from a previous relationship.
The couple became engaged in April 2024 over dinner at one of their favorite restaurants, Tornado Club Steak House in Madison. In February, Mr. Murphy moved into Dr. Marshall’s home, where they still live.
They were wed on June 29 before 200 guests at the Assembly Chambers at Madison’s State Capitol. Page Buchanan, a friend of the couple who was ordained by Universal Life Church for the occasion, officiated. Reflective of their shared Scottish heritage, a bagpiper played traditional Scottish music as Dr. Marshall walked down the aisle and after they exchanged vows.
They held their reception at The Tinsmith, an event venue in Madison, and, in a nod to their interest in hula hoops since the pandemic, named the party “The Hoopening.” Guests were given hula hoops as favors, and the couple’s table was adorned with two intertwining LED hula hoops. Two bands and a D.J. kept the dance floor packed all evening to rock, punk and pop music. “There was so much liveliness and love in the room,” Dr. Marshall said.
Shivani Vora is a New York City-based travel writer who considers herself a very savvy packer.
The post It Took Years, Some Electrical Help, Then Came the Spark appeared first on New York Times.
