When Alexandra Vasilia Voyatzakis first saw Pontus Mikael Henriksson on the dating app Bumble in the summer of 2018, she did not swipe right, but not because he wasn’t her type. (He definitely was.)
“I distinctly remember seeing his face,” said Ms. Voyatzakis, noting that she had found him attractive. But she was also worried. She had an unfortunate dating history when it came to dating handsome men, which her friends often referred to as “model-y types,” she said. Those relationships always failed.
But when she saw Mr. Henriksson appear in her search again in early January 2019, she decided to give him a swipe. The two matched that very same day.
“I remember thinking that she was absolutely gorgeous, but I was intimidated,” Mr. Henriksson said. “She had this attitude. But then we matched and we messaged and I was like, ‘This girl is so sweet.’ We started messaging all the time.”
Five days later, they spoke on the phone for the first time. “The second I heard her voice, I was like, ‘wow, this is something,’” Mr. Henriksson said.
In mid-January 2019, they went on their first date, which was drinks at Primo’s in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood. “We only had two drinks each, and yet sat there talking for five hours,” Ms. Voyatzakis said. “We didn’t want it to end.”
That night, Ms. Voyatzakis wrote in her journal, “I finally got it right.”
Their second and third dates were delayed until February because Mr. Henriksson had surgery to remove his wisdom teeth. And their fourth date had to wait until early March as he was traveling in Italy on vacation in late February.
But the two became exclusive on that fourth date. Saying “I love you” followed in April. And in May 2019, Mr. Henriksson began spending every night at Ms. Voyatzakis’s apartment in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, before making it official in February 2020, after his lease in Jersey City, N.J., was up. The couple now live in Brooklyn Heights.
Ms. Voyatzakis, 37, who grew up in the Boston suburbs, sells antiques and vintage items through her business, Alekka. She has a bachelor’s degree in English from Emmanuel College in Boston.
Mr. Henriksson, 33, is a revenue accounting operations manager at Spotify in New York. He has a bachelor’s degree in accountancy from California State University in Los Angeles and a certified public accountant license in New York. He grew up in Tyreso, Sweden, just outside of Stockholm.
Ms. Voyatzakis had always wanted to get engaged in Italy, because of her affinity for the country. It didn’t hurt that she has a deep love for historic buildings. “She got me into historic homes,” Mr. Henriksson said. “We visit them in New York.”
In early 2021, thinking that a marriage proposal couldn’t be too far off, the couple together designed a diamond engagement ring for Ms. Voyatzakis. But the pandemic was making European travel a challenge.
So, on July 27, 2021, during a trip to the Hamptons, Mr. Henriksson proposed to Ms. Voyatzakis using that ring at Wölffer Estate, a vineyard in Sagaponack, N.Y. “Not historic,” Mr. Henriksson said, “but it looked like an Italian vineyard.”
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The couple married on April 26 at the Office of the City Clerk in Manhattan by Guohuan Zhang, supervisor and officiant of the Marriage Bureau. Mr. Henriksson said it was surreal, “to marry the love of my life, in the city where we met, not too far from where we had our first date.”
In attendance were Ms. Voyatzakis’s parents and a cousin, Gregory S. Kamelakis, who served as their photographer, as well as the couple’s dog, Lily, a Morkie.
“During our photos, a bus filled with non-U. S. high school students pulled up and filed out and all began clapping and cheering,” Ms. Voyatzakis said. “It was so adorable.”
A larger, three-day celebration in Greece, where Ms. Voyatzakis’s family is from, will follow over the Memorial Day weekend. “We consider that our official wedding,” Ms. Voyatzakis said.
The event, with 80 guests expected to attend, will include a symbolic ceremony, led by Mr. Kamelakis, at a 19th-century property called the Queen’s Tower, a former royal estate near Athens, which the couple pointed out, is perfect for history enthusiasts.
“Since our wedding in Greece will be somewhat large, we felt like this gave us some time to be quiet and take it all in,” Ms. Voyatzakis said. “Having our dog Lily with us was the cherry on top of it all as she won’t be making the journey to Greece with us.”
