Before the end of 2017, she had relocated. Three days after her arrival, Ms. Flores was spending New Year’s Eve with Mr. Morris, whose relationship had ended. They toasted to the start of 2018 with champagne at a now-closed bar in Brooklyn and started dating soon after. By March 2018, the two had become exclusive.
About a year later, in April 2019, Ms. Flores moved in with Mr. Morris. He now works as the executive director of the House of SpeakEasy, a literary foundation in New York. Ms. Flores is a freelance writer and the associate publisher of BOMB Magazine.
In lieu of a proposal, the two discussed an engagement weeks later at Bacchus, a bistro and wine bar in Brooklyn. They were seated in its garden, and Mr. Morris looked at the large tree they were under and suggested that they could marry beneath it. Ms. Flores agreed.
They were married on May 14 in that same garden in front of 70 guests. The couple’s friend, the writer Brendan Kiely, led the ceremony and Maksim Kondratenko, a minister with American Marriage Ministries, officiated. Later, an additional 70 guests joined the newlyweds and those at their ceremony for a reception the Ace Hotel in Brooklyn. All attendees were asked to be vaccinated and to take a rapid test the day of the event.
A six-person brass band accompanied the crowd from the ceremony to the reception in a second-line-style slow-pace march. Both events were peppered with literary touches, which included poetry readings, table numbers printed on library cards with an Emily Dickinson quote (“Life would be all spring”) and a card catalog box where guests could deposit written well wishes for the couple.
Sometime over the winding course of their relationship, the bride said she realized her first impression of the groom as arrogant was a misconception. “When I met a lot of his friends, they were like, ‘Boy did you have that wrong,’” Ms. Flores recalled.
“And of course, clearly, I did,” she added.
