During a routine morning routine of brushing her teeth and reading through Instagram on Feb. 11, 2019, Kathrine Taylor Adams took the time to read a personal ad that Brook Ann Nelson had written for an Instagram account that served as a dating board for queer women.
Mx. Nelson, who employs a courtesy title that is gender neutral, wrote of her desire to “obtain tickets to the opera, stay out dancing till dawn, and read the New York Times in my untidy sheets in the morning.”
Ms. Adams became intrigued and decided to contact Mx. Nelson, who resides in Seattle.
“Do you think we’re soulmates?” Mrs. Adams, who goes by the name Kate, wrote a letter. “If you’re free to go ahead and start picking table arrangements for our small but elegant lesbian wedding, I can be in Seattle by tomorrow lunchtime,” she said. “I can be in Seattle by tomorrow lunchtime if you’re free to go ahead and start picking table arrangements for our small but elegant lesbian wedding.”
Ms. Adams was a resident of Baltimore at the time of the incident. She had relocated to Maryland from Raleigh, North Carolina, in 2016, the year after she had divorced her spouse of two years, and it was during that year that she came out as a lesbian to her family.
Despite any early joking about about meeting up in Seattle on the spur of the moment, the two restricted their communication to virtual conversations and messaging until April 2019, when Ms. Adams, 35, travelled to Seattle to meet with Mx. Nelson, 41, in person.
They spent three days seeing the area’s tourist sites, eating together, and getting to know one another more intimately. Ms. Adams recalled one specific incident in which Mx. Nelson shown kindness when a hole-in-the-wall sandwich business offered Ms. Adams a warm can of soda as a thank you.
“I was trying to maintain the illusion that everything was OK,” Ms. Adams said. “However, Brook was not having it. She raced about three doors down the street, into a coffee shop, and returned with a cup of ice to ensure that my Coke stayed cool.”
When it came time for Ms. Adams to go, the two of them grieved together in the arrivals hall at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport before her departure. Until Ms. Adams relocated to Seattle with her cat, Carter, in July 2019, the couple maintained their long-distance relationship.
Mx. Nelson drove to Baltimore in advance of Ms. Adams’s cross-country relocation to assist her with packing, and the two of them then returned to Seattle, where Ms. Adams had leased a room in an apartment she located on Craigslist.
Ms. Adams, on the other hand, woke up apprehensive after her first night there.
After four days of intensively being together, she thought to herself, “If Brook wants some space after that move — after like four days of just passionately being together, I absolutely understand,” she added.
Those concerns were allayed the next morning, when Mx. Nelson arrived at Ms. Adams’s rental with breakfast in hand.
In addition to coffee and a doughnut from our favourite coffee shop, she remarked, “Here I brought your key to my home,” according to Ms. Adams.
“All of my fears were allayed,” she said, speaking of her state of mind at the moment. “This individual is on the lookout for the genuine thing.” Six months later, Ms. Adams moved into Mx. Nelson’s home, where she and her husband, Carter, as well as a dog called Bird, continue to reside today.
Currently, Ms. Adams works as a senior project manager for learning and development at the Starbucks headquarters in Seattle. Mx. Nelson works as a project delivery manager at Cruise, a San Francisco-based automotive technology business, where she oversees the design and development of various projects.
Mx. Nelson became ill with Covid in early 2020 and was hospitalised for many months, a procedure that the two agreed served to strengthen their relationship. After Ms. Adams’ engagement had been announced in late 2020, Mx. Nelson began the process of finding her a suitable engagement ring. Mx. Nelson, on the other hand, was diagnosed with a brain tumour only a few days before she was preparing to propose.
Mx. Nelson proposed to Ms. Adams on Dec. 7, 2020, while on a walk near the cabin they had rented in Enumclaw, Washington. The two were still awaiting the results of the tests that would determine her diagnosis at the time. The pair received the news that Mx. Nelson’s tumour was benign two weeks after Ms. Adams said yes to the proposal.
Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California served as the setting for their wedding on February 11. Tomoko Miyazawa, who was ordained by the Universal Life Church, presided over the ceremony in front of two invited guests.
During the ceremony, the couple exchanged wedding rings, each of which was inscribed with the words “real deal” on the inside.
