On an April evening in 2016, Danny Ray Mefford had a few hours to kill between rehearsal and a performance of the Broadway musical “Dear Evan Hansen.”
So Mefford, a theater director and choreographer who was working on the show, planned to meet Yazmany Arboleda for a spicy margarita at Barrio Chino on the Lower East Side.
“The conversation was so rich and surprising,” recalled Arboleda, who matched with Mefford on Hinge. “I thought: ‘Oh my god, he’s so fun and joyful and smart.’”
They shared a passion for the arts and had several mutual friends across New York City’s creative community.
Arboleda, 45, grew up between Medellín, Colombia, and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He works as the senior artistic adviser for the Community Arts Network, which creates public art projects, and is the founder and chief artistic officer of the People’s Creative Institute, which uses art to transform public spaces.
Mefford, 44, is from Floyds Knobs, Ind. He holds a bachelor’s degree in theater from the University of Evansville and a master’s of fine arts in acting from Brown University and the Trinity Repertory Company.
The pair went on a second date a few days later that spanned most of that weekend. Just weeks after meeting, Arboleda had to travel to Kenya for two months to lead a public art initiative that involved the painting of various places of worship.
Arboleda invited Mefford to visit. He accepted. “It’s fair to say we were obsessed with one another from the very beginning,” Mefford said.
Over 10 days in Africa, a trip that included a visit to Tanzania, Mefford observed Arboleda in his element: using art to engage and unite communities. The two also carved out time for themselves by relaxing on a beach and taking a hot-air balloon ride over the Maasai Mara National Reserve.
The trip solidified their relationship and was an early indicator of how both careers would sometimes pull them away from New York and each other — a sacrifice they were willing to accept.
“All that time apart created more desire,” Arboleda said. “We’re so deeply invested in each other and our work.”
In April 2018, during a breakfast outing with Mefford’s parents, Arboleda proposed. He presented Mefford with a painting he had created depicting the universe, with a single star meant to represent Mefford. The star was a diamond.
[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]
It was paramount, Arboleda said, that Mefford’s parents were present.
“Danny comes from a place with people who really have given him unconditional love,” he said, adding, “I am a beneficiary of their love.”
For the next several years, the couple wrestled with what form their wedding celebration should take, hoping to eschew tradition.
“It was important for us to make it a little strange,” Mefford said. ”To turn it on its head just a tiny bit.”
During that time, they weathered various challenges, including disruptions to their work as a result of the pandemic and Arboleda’s younger sister’s terminal cancer diagnosis.
“It was always very easy to show up for Yazmany,” Mefford said. “He is deeply unafraid of my anger, deeply unafraid of my sadness, deeply unafraid of any complexity that I can bring to the table.”
Arboleda said that because he had felt like an outsider for parts of his life, he developed a penchant for “building bridges and finding excuses to fall in love with people.” With that communal spirit in mind, the couple eventually devised a “love ritual,” a marriage celebration largely shaped by various contributions from their guests.
The couple married on May 24 in Athens, N.Y., where they bought a home three years ago, in a private event space that had once been an Episcopal church. The ceremony was officiated by Jenny Douglas, a close friend of the couple whose wedding Arboleda himself officiated in 2022. She was ordained for the occasion as a one-day officiant by the Village of Athens, N.Y.
Among the many communal flourishes: Some guests helped decorate the church. Others formed a choir to serenade the couple during the processional. Everyone was invited to select from an array of flowers and later placed them in a collective bouquet that became the backdrop for a photo booth.
Rain stopped just in time for all 130 guests to parade with a mariachi band to the nearby reception venue, the Stewart House.
The misty weather gave the event an ethereal quality — fitting, the couple said, for a day that had also made space to honor deceased loved ones, especially Arboleda’s sister Nataly Arboleda, who lost her battle with breast cancer last summer.
“The spiritual world became translucent for us in a way; it was very accessible to everyone who was present,” Arboleda said.
The post A Celebration and a ‘Love Ritual’ Shaped by Their Community appeared first on New York Times.
