Daniel Davies had followed Sarah Ann Rappaport on social media for a year before he summoned the courage to message her on Instagram and ask her on a date.
Mr. Davies was interested in learning more about finance and investing, and, at the time, December 2019, Ms. Rappaport was covering the beat as a producer on Bloomberg Television.
“Sarah sounded like an interesting girl, and her profile picture online was really cute,” he said. “I decided to shoot my shot by asking her out, as they say.”
“I was surprised that this guy I didn’t know was asking me out,” she said. “But he asked in such a nice way, and I decided it’d be worth it to meet.”
Mr. Davies was keen on finding “the one,” he said, and didn’t want to “date around.” Ms. Rappaport was open to a relationship but not actively looking.
“I was dating but hadn’t met anyone who gave me butterflies in a while,” she said.
Back then, she was renting an apartment in North London’s Highgate neighborhood, and he lived a three-hour drive away in Caerphilly, Wales.
Their first date, in January 2020, saw Mr. Davies driving to London from Caerphilly to meet Ms. Rappaport at Broadway Market in East London for lunch.
“I noticed Daniel’s beautiful eyes right away and thought he was very sharply dressed,” she said.
“Sarah had a warmth to her,” he said.
They grabbed Thai food from a stall, strolled with their takeout boxes to London Fields park, where they sat on a bench and talked nonstop for three hours. They spoke of their jobs, where they grew up and how Ms. Rappaport, a Chicago-area native, ended up living in London.
Neither wanted the date to end, so they walked to a pub nearby, Cat & Mutton, to get drinks and chat some more.
Work and distance kept them from meeting again until the end of February.
Their second date turned into a weekend event. Dinner on Saturday at Flour & Grape, an Italian restaurant in the city’s Bermondsey neighborhood, led to a walk to London Bridge. Later, they went to a pop-up bar, Vinegar Yards, where they drank espresso martinis, played Jenga and laughed.
At some point, Mr. Davies leaned in to kiss Ms. Rappaport. “I got such butterflies when he did,” she said.
On Sunday morning, they took a long walk along the River Thames and eventually said their goodbyes. Ms. Rappaport flew to New York that afternoon for a work assignment on what was supposed to be a two-week trip.
Then the pandemic hit, and she ended up staying for two months.
“There was so much news with the pandemic that Bloomberg asked me to stay,” she said. They texted and called often.
Ms. Rappaport was eager to see Mr. Davies when she returned to London in May 2020 and invited him to stay with her for the weekend. “I loved being with him in person after all the texting and video calls,” she said.
They were officially a couple from that point on. Covid limited their activities, so they went on walks, watched Netflix and cooked for each other. Mr. Davies often made pasta carbonara, and Ms. Rappaport found a new hobby in baking cookies and banana bread.
Ms. Rappaport was sure she wanted to marry Mr. Davies that August during a weekend getaway to the waterfront Welsh village Tenby. “It was raining — classic Welsh weather — and we were walking along the beach in the drizzle,” she said. “It hit me that I had never felt so happy with anyone else.”
Ms. Rappaport, 35, grew up in Grayslake, Ill. She is a reporter for Bloomberg Pursuits and Bloomberg Businessweek in London and writes on travel, real estate, arts and culture. She holds a bachelor’s in journalism from the University of Missouri and a master’s in journalism from the University of Winchester.
Mr. Davies, 38, is from Maesycwmmer, Wales. He works at Heathrow Airport as an aircraft engineer in GE Aerospace’s On Wing Support division, a job he took in April 2022, which allowed him to move to London and move in with Ms. Rappaport. In May, they moved into a larger unit in London’s Muswell Hill neighborhood, where they now live.
The couple became engaged in December on a day trip to the Welsh village Tongwynlais to see the 19th-century attraction, Castell Coch. “We climbed to the top turret of the castle to catch the views, and then, Dan got down on one knee,” Ms. Rappaport said.
[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]
On Sept. 11, they wed in front of seven guests at London’s Chelsea Old Town Hall. Elizabeth Kearns, a deputy superintendent registrar for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, officiated. The pair held another ceremony on Sept. 14 before 61 guests at Island Resort Athens Riviera in Athens, Greece, with a reception afterward that featured an olive bar, chicken gyros and dancing until 4 a.m.
As fans of the rock band Queen, the couple shared their first dance to “You’re My Best Friend.”
Shivani Vora is a New York City-based travel writer who considers herself a very savvy packer.
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