Dr. Jennifer Yan and Dr. Michael Pan are medical residents at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston who have aided others in the battle against Covid-19. But that was not where they met.
Dr. Yan, 32, who specializes in pediatric otolaryngology, and Dr. Pan, 31, whose expertise is in urology, also run in the same social circles as two of their mutual friends. But they did not meet through them, either.
Nor were they set up by a member of either family, both of whom are Chinese immigrants. And although they lived in the same condominium complex in Houston, the doctors didn’t meet in the lobby, elevator or laundry room.
They met through the dating app Coffee Meets Bagel.
“She’s a morning person, I’m more of a night owl,” said Dr. Pan, who graduated from Rice University and received a medical degree from Baylor. “With such opposite schedules,” he said with the slightest of sighs, “I don’t think there’s any other way we could have met.”
Dr. Yan, the daughter of Sherry Yan and Shosiang Yan of Mesa, Ariz., made the first click after analyzing Dr. Pan’s profile in June 2015.
“From the photos he posted, he seemed like a very sweet guy,” said Dr. Yan, who graduated from Harvard and received a medical degree from the University of Arizona College of Medicine.
Dr. Pan, the son of Ming-Ming Jiang Pan and Zhizhong Pan of Bellaire, Texas, did his fair share of research as well after discovering what he called “a rare, once-in-a-lifetime find.”
“She was a bit goofy,” he said, laughing. “But she was also brilliant and caring and warmhearted, and had the ability to calm me down whenever I began to spin out of control.”
Dr. Yan returned an equally pleasing evaluation. “Although he was very handsome and extremely intelligent, he was not one of the those guys who acted like he was all that,” Dr. Yan said. “Instead, he was always modest and introspective, and I loved that about him.”
They began dating steadily, and became engaged July 31 2019 in Houston, before setting their wedding date for Oct. 17, 2020 and agreeing on 100 guests at Ma Maison, an events space in Dripping Springs, Texas, a town with a population under 5,000 (as of 2018) that bills itself as “the wedding capital Texas.”
But the coronavirus changed most of that.
While the couple is still planning on marrying at Ma Maison, their date was moved up to June 20, and they will now be married by a judge of Harris County at the Herbert W. Gee Municipal Courthouse in Houston.
“As long as the man I’m marrying didn’t change,” Dr. Yan said, “then everything is fine.”