Years before she became his wife, Selina Delgado Schultz was known to Kevin Justin Rivera as his best friend’s “cute cousin.”
The two first met as children growing up in Brooklyn and attending Brooklyn Friends School together, where he was a grade ahead of her. When they were teenagers, she moved into an apartment building across the street from his, near Grand Army Plaza. He would look for her when he passed by.
“I was always telling my mom, ‘Oh, Dylan’s cousin lives there, maybe we’ll see her,” Mr. Rivera, 30, said. “But the funny thing is, I don’t think Selina thought about me living across from her at all.” He always hoped he’d go over to her apartment with her cousin, but the pieces never fell into place.
“At that time, our concentric circles weren’t together,” Mr. Rivera said. “They were just like three feet removed.”
One night in November 2014, when she was 19 and he was 20, their circles came together again. They’d gone to the same party in downtown Manhattan, and as Ms. Schultz was leaving, a man on the street started bothering her. Mr. Rivera saw what was happening and intervened.
“All of sudden, Kevin kind of swooped in,” Ms. Schultz, 29, said. He told the man to leave her alone, and helped her find her friends and get a car home.
“I was very taken by that interaction,” she said. “And then when we would see each other out, we would kind of gravitate toward each other.”
“I was on her radar,” Mr. Rivera said.
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In January 2015, they went on their first date, which was dinner at Chimu, a now-closed Peruvian restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He chose the place and picked her up, and she was struck by how gentlemanly he was.
She was unlike anyone he’d ever dated, he said. “She was this Cuban girl who liked the Grateful Dead and was really confident, like outwardly confident, and just so exuberant,” he added. When they sat down to dinner, the restaurant happened to be playing the Grateful Dead. It was a serendipitous start.
As they ate, they traced their intertwining lives, bonding over shared memories from years they had overlapped in school, like the teachers they had and the songs they sang in music class.
After their first date, they spent months going out and rediscovering the city as young adults. “His energy is just always fun and happy and excited,” Ms. Schultz said. “He would bring that out in me.”
In August 2015, she left New York and transferred to the University of Texas at Austin from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, N.Y. That first semester, he flew down to visit her and she came home to see him. Homesick for New York, she ended up transferring to the New School, which Mr. Rivera attended.
He graduated from the New School with a bachelor’s degree in urban studies; she with a bachelor’s in literary studies. Mr. Rivera is the vice president for sales at Park Avenue Building and Roofing Supplies, a family-owned business founded by his father. Ms. Schultz, who also has a master’s degree in mental health counseling from N.Y.U., works remotely as a therapist, psychotherapist and mental health counselor at NYC Therapeutic Wellness, a Manhattan-based practice.
Early on in their relationship, Mr. Rivera got a pit bull puppy named Sloan, who became their shared dog and a “mascot” for their friend group, Ms. Schultz said. In 2021, after a difficult period of reckoning with what they wanted and how they had grown since they first got together, they broke up. But sharing custody of Sloan — and seeing each other at Ms. Schultz’s cousin’s apartment — helped them reunite about two months later. They decided to move in together in Williamsburg.
“Then we lived together and it was great,” Mr. Rivera said. “It was beautiful.” After a year of living together, they started talking about marriage.
Initially, Ms. Schultz wanted a big proposal. Mr. Rivera was planning to propose on the beach in Montauk, N.Y., with friends and family. But then, one night in March 2023, she realized she wanted something more intimate. She said: “I know the ring’s been in the drawer for months — let’s just do it.” So, around 2 a.m. at home in their apartment, in front of their dog, Sloan, and their cat, Kitten, Mr. Rivera got down on one knee and proposed.
“It was perfect,” she said.
The two were married July 13 at Inness, a hotel and venue in Accord, N.Y., by their friend, Cyrus Summerlin, who was previously ordained by the Universal Life Church. Nathan Watson, another friend of the couple, also participated in the ceremony. Afterward, the couple’s 89 guests dined and danced in a barn on the hotel property adorned with disco balls and wildflowers.
In her vows, Ms. Schultz reflected on their nine years together. “Over the years,” she said, “Our bond has come to feel like two vines growing into each other and toward the sun.” Rain was on the forecast for their wedding day, but in the end, the summer sun prevailed.
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