The love story of Maria Oveysi and Muhaymin Ahmed Kamal is what you might call a full-circle moment.
The two met in spring 2015 at Amoos, an Iranian restaurant in McLean, Va., owned by Ms. Oveysi’s family.
Amoos serves the homemade ice cream that would inspire the couple to start their own ice cream brand six years later.
Mr. Kamal, who goes by Moe, came to the restaurant with friends to have dinner that spring night. “I saw Maria, and it was like, ‘Oh, OK. Who is that?’” Mr. Kamal said.
“I thought they were very smart and well put together,” Ms. Oveysi said of the group. “And very handsome.”
So, although they didn’t exchange phone numbers, they would run into one another while studying at Barnes & Noble and the library in McLean, and continue to see one another at Amoos. They soon learned that they were both working on M.B.A. degrees and shared several mutual friends.
“Our connection was quite old school,” Ms. Oveysi said. “After a couple of random run-ins, we exchanged phone numbers,” after which they began meeting up to study and then grab a bite to eat.
They eventually went on what they consider their true first date in the spring of 2017, to the Barcelona Wine Bar on 14th Street in Washington. “It was very natural,” Mr. Kamal said. “We discovered we shared a lot of the same interests.”
“The attraction was there and we were friends first,” Ms. Oveysi said, which made it easy, both said, and led to many more comfortable nights out.
After Ms. Ovesysi completed her business degree in 2017, the two made their relationship official during a vacation to Lisbon. “It was very light,” Mr. Kamal said. “It was like, ‘What do you say?’”
Ms. Oveysi said yes.
In September 2019, they moved into a loft in Tysons Corner, Va. When the pandemic hit and they began working remotely — he, as a bioengineer, and she, in finance and business development — they started thinking maybe a move was in order.
[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]
Ms. Oveysi had long dreamed of relocating to Los Angeles. So, in July 2020, they decided to try it out for a few weeks before permanently moving that September to the apartment in West Hollywood, Calif., where they now live.
Then came another life change. “We were bitten by the Covid entrepreneurial bug,” Mr. Kamal said. “I’ve always loved the saffron ice cream at Maria’s family restaurant, and she always wanted to package it.”
They decided to go for it and started Kinrose Creamery in 2021, “inspired by our Middle Eastern roots, with flavors that are derived from the recipes that we grew up on,” Mr. Kamal said.
Mr. Kamal, 41, was born in Chicago to Egyptian parents who had each come to the United States to earn their Ph.D.s. Mr. Kamal was then raised in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where his family moved, often returning to the United States in the summer with his parents, who were professors. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biomedical sciences from SUNY Buffalo and an M.B.A. and master’s degree in biotechnology/bioengineering from Johns Hopkins University.
Ms. Oveysi, 35, was born in Bukan, Iran, and came to the United States when she was 1. She was raised in Falls Church, Va., and earned a bachelor’s degree in business law and an M.B.A., both from Marymount University.
The couple’s business went from selling pints in 2021 to catering in 2022 to a brick-and-mortar store in Pasadena, Calif., in 2024. Their catering gigs have included a baby shower for Lilly Ghalichi of Bravo’s “Shahs of Sunset”; a birthday party for Selena Gomez; and a shoe launch for the rapper Tyga.
The couple’s proposal was as casual as the night they became a couple.
In March 2021, as they were having dinner at a chophouse called Jar in Los Angeles in the Beverly Grove neighborhood and talking about the future, “Muhaymin, with his laid-back nature, asked if we should proceed with our cultural proposal,” Ms. Oveysi said, which meant they would each speak to their families.
The two were wed Sept. 13 at the Drift Hotel in Palm Springs, Calif., before 100 guests. Mohamed Kamal, Mr. Kamal’s older brother, who was ordained by American Marriage Ministries for the occasion, officiated. “We wanted every part of the wedding to be personal,” Mr. Kamal said.
Their wedding included Ms. Oveysi’s bridal party taking “turns rubbing sugar blocks above us to spread sweetness into our big day,” Mr. Kamal said, as well a Sofreh Aghd, a ceremonial marriage spread of symbolic items.
“He is Egyptian, and I’m Kurdish Iranian,” Ms. Oveysi said. “It was important to us to bring elements from both of our cultures into our wedding weekend.”
And, of course, ice cream from Kinrose Creamery was served.
The post As Soon as They Met, They Were Sweet on Each Other appeared first on New York Times.
