When Neah Alexandra Morton and Geoffrey Bain Hutchinson connected through the Tinder dating app in April 2017, they didn’t wait long — just five days — to meet for their first date at a tapas restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland.
It took even less time to develop a chemistry between them.
“I knew right away that I liked him because he was so warm and humble and incredibly intelligent,” said Ms. Morton, 29, senior business program manager at Microsoft’s Seattle headquarters.
“He had a calm mindset, the kind you can only have when you’re really comfortable,” added Ms. Morton, who graduated magna cum laude from Spelman College with a bachelor’s degree in political science. “We’ve been hooked at the hip ever since.”
Hutchinson, 32, said that looking back on his first date with Ms Morton, “all I can see is this beautiful woman, with the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen.”
“I remember being so amazed at her sense of style and her easygoing yet confident demeanor,” added Mr. Hutchinson, a doctoral student who completed a dual mentorship in immunology and immunoengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “She gave me a sense of exciting familiarity that I had never felt before.”
Mr. Hutchinson, a graduate of Ball State University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry, served with the Peace Corps in Mozambique from 2014 to 2016. The National Institutes of Health’s vaccine research center in Bethesda, where he focused on developing vaccines against the coronavirus, flu and respiratory syncytial virus.
Over the following years, their initial chemistry evolved into a deeper relationship. The couple went on weekend trips to visit Mr. Hutchinson’s father, George B. Hutchinson, in the Finger Lakes region of New York, and attended weekly Sunday dinners followed by Scrabble games at Mrs. Morton’s parents’ Fairfax home. Virginia.
On April 21, 2019, the eve of their second anniversary, the two became engaged in Bartholdi Park, a peaceful garden in Washington, D.C.
The following year, Mrs. Morton plans to pursue a master’s degree in communications at Johns Hopkins University. But she postponed accepting her current job at Microsoft. Ms. Morton now plans to begin the remote master’s program in January 2022.
“I like the way she thinks,” Mr. Hutchinson said. “She’s so fast, she has a brilliant analytical mind and a way of solving problems that kind of blows me away.”
Mrs. Morton and Mr. Hutchinson, now based in Seattle, married in an outdoor ceremony for about 110 guests, most of them vaccinated, on Dec. 12 at the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Miami. Rev. Elijah McDavid III, senior pastor of the Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in Minneapolis and a childhood friend of the bride, performed.
They originally planned to get married there on April 24, but due to coronavirus-related restrictions at the venue, they had to postpone the date, which Ms Morton said was best.
“I’m so glad we waited,” the bride said as she spoke of the couple’s wedding. “It gave us the opportunity to be fully present in the moment and reflect on the journey we had taken together.”
