William Jeffrey Melsheimer and Isabella Louise Shea are feeling grateful to their friends Dylan and Sadie Sellers.
It was through the married couple that Mr. Melsheimer and Ms. Shea were first introduced, in July 2020, at an engagement party neither was invited to, but the Sellers suggested they come along. (Ms. Shea went to college with the Sellers, while Mr. Melsheimer went to high school with them.)
Ms. Shea, having asked Mr. Sellers to set her up with a friend, had her eye on Mr. Melsheimer before the party even began. “I definitely came on very strong, because I knew this is who I should be with,” she said.
Mr. Melsheimer was none the wiser. “They didn’t warn me,” he recalled. “But she was obviously very beautiful, very talkative and had a great sense of humor.”
Ms. Shea, 29, who goes by Izzie, is a director of strategy and business operations at Bergdorf Goodman. She was born in Houston and raised in San Antonio, Texas. She holds a bachelor’s degree in fashion merchandising from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.
Mr. Melsheimer, also 29, who goes by Jeff, is an associate at Susman Godfrey, a law firm in New York. He was born and raised in Dallas. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science and government from Notre Dame and a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin School of Law.
It wouldn’t be until more than a year later, in September 2021, that the two would meet again. This time, it was at the future Mr. and Ms. Sellers’s engagement party. Ms. Shea was the bride’s maid of honor and frequently traveled to Dallas from New York to assist with wedding planning. Mr. Melsheimer was still living in Dallas, clerking for Alan D Albright, a U.S. district judge. They started seeing each other whenever Ms. Shea was in town.
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“I was so clueless,” Mr. Melsheimer said. “I was thinking, ‘Wow, Izzie sure is a good friend for coming down for all these events. I didn’t realize she was coming down to see me.”
Things didn’t become more serious until the two, driving together, joined Mr. and Ms. Sellers for a New Year’s celebration at a lake house in Gun Barrel City, Texas. Afterward, they started dating long distance until they made their relationship official in June 2022. A month later, at the Sellers’ wedding, Mr. Melsheimer told Ms. Shea that he loved her.
Mr. Melsheimer completed his clerkship and moved to New York in September 2022. They were finally in the same city. “She would show me all the places to go — and not to go,” he said of Ms. Shea, who had been living there since 2018. “She’s still ordering me around.”
One night in October 2022, the two went to their favorite restaurant, Emmett’s on Grove, in Manhattan’s West Village. The wine was flowing. Suddenly, Mr. Melsheimer let it out: “I want to marry you, Izzie.”
The two knew they eventually would, but still needed some time as individuals. But by the time 2024 came, Mr. Melsheimer had a date set for the proposal: Aug. 16.
Preparations were made. He arranged for Ms. Shea’s friends and family, along with his own, to fly in from Texas to celebrate. Plane tickets and hotel accommodations were booked.
It all seemed to crumble when, two weeks before the date, Mr. Melsheimer was assigned a case that required him to temporarily relocate to Baltimore. It was a big case, and he needed to be there for five months.
Ms. Shea was distraught. “I was being such a brat about it,” she recalled. She had resigned herself to the reality that they would not be engaged until January, when Mr. Melsheimer moved back to New York.
This time, however, it was Ms. Shea who was none the wiser. On the planned day, Mr. Melsheimer took the Amtrak from Baltimore to New York for a “dinner” with his mother and Ms. Shea. They arrived at Pier 26 in Hudson River Park, where Mr. Melsheimer suggested they take a walk. Ms. Shea, whose feet were hurting from her shoes, refused.
But the photographer Mr. Melsheimer hired was waiting at the end of the pier. He frantically texted him to run to where they were — thankfully, he did. Mr. Melsheimer got down on one knee.
Afterward, the couple were joined by their friends and family at Grand Eleven in Tribeca. The two spent their first five months of their engagement long distance, with Mr. Melsheimer still in Baltimore.
“It was a good reminder that we can handle anything,” Ms. Shea said.
On Jan. 29, the two were married at the Manhattan City Clerk’s office before three guests by Father Clyde LeBlanc, a Catholic priest from St. Charles Borromeo Church in Grand Coteau, La. The couple will host a celebration on Feb. 14 in Mexico City, where an infinity-shaped lasso will be around the couple, symbolizing eternal union, unity and divine protection.
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