A Couple Kisses That Sealed the Deal
When Olivia Christine Snyder-Spak matched with Elias Jeremy Stein on Hinge in September 2021, she was a decade into online dating but had never found an ideal partner. “I had probably gone on at least a few hundred first dates, sometimes even doing two in a day,” she said.
Mr. Stein was less versed in internet matchmaking and had been on only a handful of dates over the previous year. “I wanted a serious relationship and decided to try the online route since meeting people in person during Covid was harder,” he said.
At the time, Mr. Stein, 35, was renting an apartment in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn; Ms. Snyder-Spak, 36, lived on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
The two exchanged messages for a week about their shared love for cooking classes and art projects and exchanging funny stories. Then, Mr. Stein asked Ms. Snyder-Spak on a mini-golfing date.
When they met, in mid-September, at the Putting Green mini-golf course in Brooklyn, Mr. Stein was struck by Ms. Snyder-Spak’s energy. “She was super cute and seemed bubbly,” he said.
They played golf for an hour, chatting about their backgrounds and professions as they navigated the course. “We laughed a lot because Olivia kept hitting the ball far away from the hole,” Mr. Stein said. “The conversation was so good that I asked her for drinks afterward.”
They walked to the nearby Other Half Brewing, sat outside and continued talking over beers for the next several hours. “We were easy with each other, and it was clear we had clicked,” Mr. Stein said.
Eventually, it started to rain heavily. As they waited for their Uber rides, Mr. Stein asked Ms. Snyder-Spak if he could kiss her. “I said yes, and when he smooched me, it felt like a movie kiss,” she said, describing it as “very romantic.”
They settled into a dating cadence almost immediately, seeing each other several times a week for activities like sushi-making, comedy shows and museums. On Halloween, they went to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. “The spookiness of a cemetery seemed fitting, and the fact that Eli felt the same way was a big sign that he was going to be a great teammate, down for whatever,” Ms. Snyder-Spak said.
A vacation to Turks and Caicos Islands in January 2022 solidified their commitment. “Our flight back got canceled because of bad weather and a staffing shortage, and the two we booked after that also got canceled,” Mr. Stein said. “We eventually ended up in Miami and got bumped on our flight home.”
Nevertheless, they had fun. “That’s when I knew that Olivia was the one.”
The experience made Ms. Snyder-Spak “realize that I wanted to do hard things together with Eli forever,” she said.
Mr. Stein grew up in Durham, N.C. He is a product manager on the software development team at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York and the founder of Admissions Intelligence, a college admissions platform that uses artificial intelligence. He has a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Vassar College.
Ms. Snyder-Spak is from Woodbridge, Conn., and works as the director of nonfiction at the entertainment production company Topic Studios, in New York. She has a bachelor’s degree in film from Dartmouth.
After their Turks and Caicos trip, the couple began spending several nights a week at one of their two apartments. In July 2022, they began renting a place, which they’ve since bought, in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Their bond grew as they decorated their home and traveled to places like Brazil, Portugal and Costa Rica. “My love for Olivia was getting stronger, and it was the right time to propose,” Mr. Stein said.
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On Dec. 13, 2023, during a nighttime picnic in Prospect Park, Mr. Stein asked Ms. Snyder-Spak to marry him as the Geminids meteor shower brightened the skies. As they kissed after she said yes, they caught a glimpse of a shooting star.
More than a year later, on Dec. 29, they wed on the front stoop of a Park Slope brownstone owned by Rabbi Yael Werber, a friend of the couple and the ceremony’s officiant. Rabbi Werber is affiliated with Congregation Beit Simchat Torah. Afterward, they walked to Mille-Feuille Bakery Cafe in Prospect Heights and indulged in three desserts.
In September, Mr. Stein and Ms. Snyder-Spak had hosted a six-day, pre-wedding celebration in Asheville, N.C., for 140 guests; it included activities such as solving a murder mystery, visiting local breweries and tubing down the French Broad River. The festivities culminated in a symbolic wedding ceremony on Sept. 1 at Yesterday Spaces, an event venue in Leicester, N.C.
“All my online dating before Eli was worth it because I found the guy I was looking for all along,” Ms. Snyder-Spak said. “I remember the hard work, but now everything feels like magic.”
