Jeremy Blachman saw the success of his debut novel in 2006. Right before that, he loaned his only bound copy to Nina Langsam. "I realized there would be a second date," says Nina.
They had met a year earlier, at a Princeton University reunion. Jeremy ’00 had majored in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and wrote musical comedy sketches and songs for the Triangle Club. Nina ’03 had been a biology major and was voted president of the student government. Both were friends with Zach Pincus-Roth.
"I was talking to Zach at the reunion, when Jeremy walked over, and the two of us got into a long conversation about many topics neither of us remembers," says Nina. Both Jeremy and Nina were in other relationships. A year later they weren’t, and Nina asked Zach to play matchmaker.
Zach didn’t hesitate. "When a friend says she wants to be set up with another specific friend of mine, I’m going to set them up." He had a sense Jeremy would like Nina.
Jeremy writes at their wedding website: "Zach told me to ask Nina out. So I did. Before meeting Nina I was sad. Now I am not."
Nina describes their first date – May 26, 2006 – which lasted eight hours. "We started in Park Slope at the Brooklyn Museum. I carefully chose this venue for two reasons: 1) I didn’t want Jeremy to realize how far Stony Brook really is from New York City and 2) Because I thought physical objects would give us natural conversation topics. We left the museum after our mutual disinterest in art was revealed, and walked around Prospect Park for hours."
At the time, Nina was in medical school at New York’s State University at Stony Brook and Jeremy, a recent Harvard law graduate, was living in Brooklyn and finishing his novel, "Anonymous Lawyer," based on his popular blog, anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com.
"We don’t share all the same interests," says Jeremy. ‘But we do have similar temperaments and similar personalities."
To Nina, he is "a comedian, he’s brilliant, caring and thoughtful, conscientious, and curious."
Jeremy uses the same words to describe Nina and adds: "She has a very good moral compass and a fundamental decency. She has great balance – being both light-hearted and serious; she’s both easy and driven."
She says: "We love being together and talking with each other. Even when Jeremy was in Los Angeles pitching different TV pilots, we were in constant communication – phoning, texting, and talking via webcam. For a time, we had a long-distance relationship. But we knew we were going to make it work."
And they did. On May 23, 2008, about two years after their first date, Jeremy proposed.
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They share a strong sense of family feeling. For example, Jeremy dedicated his novel to his grandparents. Still, planning a wedding is not an easy thing to do. Jeremy wrote about it in his blog: "Too much of it ends up being about the color of the table linens. I absolutely care about the pieces that count – I want the wedding to be nice. I want the pictures to be nice, I want people to have a good time, and I want to feel happy and excited and good about the day."
How did the wedding turn out? "Exactly what I hoped for," says 30-year Jeremy
And what’s it all about? Jeremy quotes a friend: "Commitment is like putting a stake in the ground and saying this is the person I want to be in the foxhole with, when stuff happens, no matter what it is, no matter how we have to deal with it, this is who I want to be with and who I want on my side, together, figuring it all out."
Jeremy and Nina were married on May 24, 2009. Mazal tov!
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