How Irene Zahariadis and Kevin Christopher Walker ever ended up together feels serendipitous. First, they matched on Hinge in February 2021, moments before Ms. Zahariadis, who grew up in Athens, was about to delete the app.
“I was considering leaving New York and moving back to Greece,” she said.
Then Mr. Walker, who was living in Lutherville, Md., for a job at the time, had a logistical issue. He’d been setting up dates in New York because he believed he was about to move there, but he got delayed longer than expected by the project.
“I told her, ‘I’ll let you know when I’m in New York,’” he said. “Then we went dark.”
Mr. Walker reached out again in April, and they planned a date for the following month at the Penrose Bar on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. But she nearly bailed. Dating in New York had left her woefully jaded, she said: “The guys are late, or just talk about themselves, or only want one thing.”
But something about her texts with Mr. Walker made her want to go.
“It was my second week in New York,” he said. “I was really nervous.” He was nervous enough that he went 30 minutes early to secure a good table.
That date lasted four hours. “We talked about our families, movies, our creative passions,” Ms. Zahariadis said. “I was so struck by how kind he was.”
Despite an amazing evening, another roadblock awaited them. Ms. Zahariadis was leaving in 10 days to visit her family in Greece for two weeks.
“I wanted to keep the snowball rolling,” Mr. Walker said. So they squeezed in two more dates before she left.
By the third, Ms. Zahariadis said she didn’t even want to go to Greece anymore. “I’m leaving something really great behind,” she recalled thinking. She went, but couldn’t wait to come back.
The two reunited in early June 2021 and became inseparable. “Being away for two weeks really fortified how much we liked each other,” Ms. Zahariadis said.
Five weeks later, they became official, and Mr. Walker excitedly threw himself into Greek culture. “He’s just always been thoughtful and wanting to be a part,” Ms. Zahariadis said. Dating him was like the film “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” come to life, she added.
Mr. Walker attended all of Ms. Zahariadis’s big family events. He “watched patiently as many screaming Greek babies were christened and money got thrown on many Greek wedding dance floors,” she said. “He even helped my dad put a goat on a spit.”
And he started learning Greek.
Ms. Zahariadis, 28, was born in Queens, N.Y., and moved to Greece at age 2. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature and creative writing from the University of Warwick in Coventry, England. She works as an SEO content specialist for the Now Media Group, which produces blogs and articles for dentists. She also does Greek translation work and is writing her first novel.
Mr. Walker, 29, was born and raised in Baltimore. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English and classics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s degree in theology and religion from Durham University in England. He works as an independent filmmaker specializing in narrative, documentary and commercial videography. He is also an owner of Cosmic Salon Films.
In May 2023, Mr. Walker moved into Ms. Zahariadis’s apartment on the Upper East Side. They now live in a different apartment in the same building.
In February 2024, the couple went to Greece to shoot a film they wrote and directed together about Nisyros, the small island where Ms. Zahariadis’ parents live and her father was born, called “Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World.” “I was so inspired by her parents and the elderly Greek community,” Mr. Walker said.
The film screened as part of a festival at the Museum of Modern Art and the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center and internationally.
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Mr. Walker proposed on Jan. 11, 2025. That morning, he insisted they go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see a specific exhibit.
“I didn’t suspect anything,” Ms. Zahariadis said, but once they arrived and he began “racing to the exhibit,” she said she should have known something was up.
“He brought me to the balcony overlooking the Greek and Roman Antiquities section, and he got down on one knee and proposed.”
The two were wed on Dec. 6 by the. Rev. Sotirios Michalatos at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church on the Upper West Side before 230 people. At Mr. Walker’s suggestion and to Ms. Zahariadis’s delight, the dinner menus included the catch phrase for which Ms. Zahariadis’s paternal grandfather, Antonis Zahariadis, who died in 1995, was known.
“His final words before collapsing unexpectedly were Ώρα Καλή,” Ms. Zahariadis said. “Which in Greek means ‘good times.’”
The post Learning About Her Culture Until it Was No Longer Greek to Him appeared first on New York Times.
