While scrolling on the dating app Hinge, a college friend of Alexis Lane Brugger’s came across Timothy Wang’s profile and instantly thought that she had found the perfect match, not for herself, but for her friend Ms. Brugger. So, she sent him a direct message.
On Sept. 12, 2020, Mr. Wang, 27, received an unexpected message through the dating app. “Hey, this might sound strange, but I think you would be a great match with my friend,” Mr. Wang recalled.
Ms. Brugger, 24, was a senior at the University of Michigan then, and Mr. Wang had returned to his hometown, Novi, Mich., because of the pandemic, where he worked remotely as an investment banking analyst for Goldman Sachs.
“I wanted to be in my childhood bedroom instead of stuck in a shoe box in New York City,” Mr. Wang said.
He replied, and Ms. Brugger’s friend gave him Ms. Brugger’s Instagram handle. “I was working 100 hours a week, glued to my computer. I needed some excitement,” Mr. Wang said.
He followed Ms. Brugger, and she followed him back.
Two days later, Mr. Wang sent Ms. Brugger a direct message, and the two agreed to meet for dinner. On Sept. 18, 2020, they met in person at the Italian restaurant Palio in Ann Arbor, Mich.
“We stayed until the restaurant closed,” Ms. Brugger said.
Mr. Wang added, “We talked about everything. They had to kick us out.”
The next morning, Mr. Wang suggested they get smoothies and go for a walk at Nichols Arboretum, affectionately known as “the Arb.” Before the stroll was over, Ms. Brugger had invited him to her birthday celebration that night.
At the time, Ms. Brugger lived in a house with five other girls. “He met everyone at once,” Ms. Brugger said. And when it came to talking her up, she said, “My friends were not subtle.”
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The two continued to date. But only on the weekends because of their busy schedules. “I looked forward to every weekend with her,” Mr. Wang said.
In April 2021, although she was also accepted at the University of Chicago Law School, Ms. Brugger decided to attend the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. “There were no cons,” Mr. Wang said, obviously rooting for the school closer to New York City, where he had moved back to an apartment in Hell’s Kitchen in July 2021.
Ms. Brugger moved into her new apartment in Philadelphia in August 2021, and Mr. Wang took his first of many Amtrak rides to help her move in.
They spent her first year of law school traveling via train between the two cities. “We made sure to make every moment together count,” Mr. Wang said. But in June 2022, they got a lot more moments, when Ms. Brugger moved into Mr. Wang’s apartment for her summer internship with the law firm Barasch & McGarry.
She returned to law school in the fall, and Mr. Wang proposed just a few months later.
Ms. Brugger and her grandmother had set up a “double date” at a Westin hotel in Washington for Nov. 11, 2022, Mr. Wang said. “Lex thought that she was the guise to lead her nana to her surprise birthday party at the Westin.” When they entered the lobby, Ms. Brugger’s grandmother claimed she had forgotten something in the car.
Mr. Wang and Ms. Brugger continued upstairs. “When the elevators opened, it revealed the room and the huge words ‘Marry me’ lit up,” Mr. Wang said. He led Ms. Brugger to the sign and got down on one knee. Both of their families then rushed in to celebrate.
After finishing her second year of law school, Ms. Brugger returned to New York City in May 2023 for a summer internship with Kirkland & Ellis, and lived with Mr. Wang in his apartment in Hudson Yards, where he had recently moved.
On April 2, 2024, Mr. Wang moved into a new apartment in Midtown Manhattan, where they still live today.
Mr. Wang is a private equity associate at TJC, an investment firm formerly known as the Jordan Company. He graduated from Columbia with a bachelor’s degree in political science.
Ms. Brugger will join the international law firm Kirkland & Ellis’s New York office as an associate in September. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor’s degree in biopsychology, cognition and neuroscience. She also earned a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.
The couple were wed on Aug. 17 at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, by the Rev. Msgr, John Enzler, a monsignor in residence at St. Bartholomew Catholic Church in Bethesda, Md. After the ceremony, there was a reception at the Mayflower Hotel with 180 guests in attendance.
Mr. Wang’s parents gifted the couple Qipao wedding clothing or “lucky red garments,” Mr. Wang explained. The couple changed into them — the bride’s garment had a phoenix design and groom, a dragon, as traditional dictates — during the reception for the cake cutting.
Instead of fresh flowers, Heather Brugger, the bride’s mother who is an artist known as Heather Lynn, made 250 crystal and recycled glass flower sculptures.
“So many people equated our story to a fairy tale,” Mr. Wang said. “For a fairy tale you need an encounter by fate, a series of adventures, and a happily ever after.”
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