Within two weeks they were seriously dating, and soon began pursuing their passion for ice cream at home and away. They tried five different places in three days in Seattle where they had orange habanero cookie dough at Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream, the popular cherimoya flavor while in Peru and the original 100-year-old tutti frutti blend at Leopold’s Ice Cream in Savannah, Ga.
After Mr. Stern’s candidate lost the Ohio race in 2018, he landed his current job in North Carolina, and moved to Durham in January 2019 while Mr. Zuzik joined him six months later after finishing up the school year.
“We explored every ice cream parlor we could find in the Triangle,” said Mr. Stern, referring to Durham, Raleigh and Chapel Hill.
On May 19, 2019, a month before Mr. Zuzik joined him in Durham, Mr. Stern proposed at Mr. Zuzik’s old stomping ground — the Cleveland Metropark Zoo — where he had enlisted the help of Bo, a sulphur-crested cockatoo, and his handler Charlotte Petrie, a friend of Mr. Zuzik’s.
At the entrance Bo, perched on a T-stand, presented a card in his beak to Mr. Zuzik. On it was written: “Will you marry me?” They later celebrated with a scoop each from Mitchell’s — Mr. Stern with peanut butter chocolate chunk and Mr. Zuzik with lemon black raspberry yogurt.
The grooms originally planned to get married at the Pittsburgh Opera House, sometime after the November election, with 200 guests. Instead they were married July 24 in Mr. Zuzik’s parents’ backyard in Canfield, Ohio, where Mr. Zuzik’s father had constructed a huppah. Rabbi Yael Dadoun officiated before immediate family. Ice cream wasn’t on the menu, but Mr. Zuzik’s mother made Heath bar cheese cake topped with caramel sauce, Mr. Stern’s favorite, and “the only thing better,” he said, “than a scoop from Mitchell’s.”
“It was easy and fun,” said Mr. Zuzik of the smaller ceremony. “Just like how our relationship has always been.”