For two years, they were a long-distance couple. In June 2022, to get her career off the ground, Ms. Hopfer accepted a job as a labor and delivery nurse in Pittsburgh. But “the goal was always to live together,” she said. M. Graham was then working as a medical assistant and taking community college classes. “It worked because we made it work,” M. Graham said.
In 2023, Ms. Hopfer shifted from nursing to working with mothers of stillborn babies as a bereavement doula. But she knew she would eventually return to nursing. Late that year, she accepted her current job in the obstetrics department of the Maryland hospital.
First, she moved into the house in Vienna that M. Graham was sharing with roommates. When M. Graham’s lease was up six months later, in June 2024, they found a place of their own in Vienna. Before they moved in, they had started talking about marriage.
On June 17, 2024, M. Graham proposed to Ms. Hopfer on a weekend trip to Savannah, Ga., with a diamond engagement ring Ms. Hopfer’s late grandfather, a jeweler, had set aside for her. A month later, Ms. Hopfer proposed to M. Graham at Mellon Park in Pittsburgh with another ring her grandfather had set aside for a grandchild’s wedding.
The couple’s Jan. 3 courthouse wedding lacked the head count of the celebration they planned for June in Forest, Va., but not by much. Instead of 25 guests, 10 watched them exchange vows before Judge George Barbour, the branch chief of the marriage bureau of Washington, D.C.
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The mood they managed to create in a place meant to feel more official than romantic, both said, was one of pure love. Handwritten vows each read reinforced their commitment and principles. M. Graham promised to be a safe haven for Ms. Hopfer.
Ms. Hopfer also promised security, in love and in life. “I promise to always choose you,” she said, “even when the world around us feels uncertain.”
