During the 2018 production of “Ragtime” for the AfterWork Theater in Manhattan, Molly Antoinette Shoemaker and Cody James Wymore were determined to keep things professional. She was the show’s director and he, the music director.
Their interaction, however, went beyond professional for Mr. Wymore. He brought in leftover meals like Dijon chicken and cheeseburgers for Ms. Shoemaker — except they weren’t actually left over. He had purposefully prepared them just for her.
When eight weeks of production wrapped in March 2018, Ms. Shoemaker wrote in her end-of-show note to Mr. Wymore that she would like to take him out to dinner to repay him for all the meals he cooked. In his note, Mr. Wymore admitted that he liked her.
By their first date, two weeks later, they had already shared a kiss on a bench in Washington Square Park before a wrap party for the cast.
“I think I got there first and then Cody got there and we talked a little bit, and that’s when we kissed for the first time,” Ms. Shoemaker said. “Since then it felt, for me at least, that this is good.”
Both seemed to think there was something solid to their relationship when they headed out on that first date to see the film “Isle of Dogs” in Union Square, followed by dinner at a now-closed restaurant nearby.
Ms. Shoemaker, 34, who grew up in Greensboro, N.C., works as the director of people operations and recruiting at Capacity Interactive, a digital marketing firm based in New York City. She has a bachelor’s degree in drama from Vassar College.
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Mr. Wymore, 37, who was raised in Spokane, Wash., works as the senior client solutions director at Innovid, an advertising technology company also in New York. He has a bachelor of music from Ithaca College and an M.F.A. in musical theater writing from NYU.
Mr. Wymore hadn’t always planned on getting married, but he felt it was the next natural step in his relationship with Ms. Shoemaker. One thing he knew for sure was that he didn’t want a traditional proposal.
So, the couple, who live in Forest Hills, Queens, came up with a plan together: They picked Sept. 3, 2022 as their engagement date, went to dinner at Balthazar and exchanged love letters.
“I had a pretty good feeling what the outcome would be,” Ms. Shoemaker said. “I still was pretty nervous.”
For their Aug. 24 wedding, they decided that being in nature was a priority and chose Camp Timber Tops, a summer camp in Greeley, Pa., as their venue.
Their celebration began on Friday night with a piano party for all of their theater friends to perform songs. Mr. Wymore surprised Ms. Shoemaker by singing “The Luckiest” by Ben Folds.
“As I said to Molly, ‘I tried to write a song for you, and it’s never worked out because the perfect song has already been written, and Ben Folds wrote it,’” Mr. Wymore said with a laugh.
Ms. Shoemaker, inspired by the American Girl doll with whom she shares a first name, found an adult-size Molly McIntire birthday dress to wear to the Friday night festivities.
Hours before the ceremony began, Ms. Shoemaker, Mr. Wymore and some of their friends decided to do a cold plunge in nearby Selma Lake.
“If you have access to a 42-degree lake, then you should use it to wake up in the morning,” Mr. Wymore said.
As notes have been a theme throughout their relationship, the couple hand-wrote a card to each of their 160 or so guests that they placed at reception seats in the camp’s dining hall.
Ms. Shoemaker and Mr. Wymore were married in a self-uniting ceremony led by their friend Amanda Chin.
Mr. Wymore noted that, given that they had chosen a self uniting marriage license which allows the couple to grant each other marriage, the wedding “felt very similar to our proposal.”
Ms. Shoemaker added: “There’s a nice symmetry to that.”
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