When Dr. Isaac Jonathan Pomeraniec met Danielle Chelminsky online in July 2018, he was working at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, Va. He was not expected in Washington until the start of 2019, as part of a seven-year joint residency program between the University of Virginia and the National Institutes of Health, where Dr. Pomeraniec is now a fifth-year resident in neurosurgery.
As it turned out, Dr. Pomeraniec began frequenting the nation’s capital five months ahead of schedule, shedding his scrubs after long shifts and making the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Ms. Chelminsky, 33, an analyst at Mathematica Policy Research in Washington.
“She was a breath of fresh air, a quirky girl who taught me right off the bat not to take things too seriously,” said Dr. Pomeraniec, 35, who goes by Jonathan.
“She was kind, compassionate and very understanding,” he added. “Best of all, she was not judgmental of me or anyone in my family or anyone else I knew for that matter.”
Ms. Chelminsky returned equal praise. “I immediately admired how humble he was, and how we both got each other’s sense of humor,” she said. “We also looked at life in much the same way, so whenever we got together, it was like we would get lost in our own little world.”
They were engaged in their apartment in October 2019, the night before a trip to Argentina. (Ms. Chelminsky had sensed that Dr. Pomeraniec was going to propose soon, and she was convinced a ring would be hidden in a steak, or an alfajor cookie, or a Boca Juniors soccer jersey, “or literally anywhere in South America,” she remembered thinking to herself. )
But then she noticed a bouquet on the kitchen table, and a blank card from Scattergories, her favorite board game, hidden in the flowers, along with an engagement ring.
They were married Aug. 30 in an outdoor, self-uniting ceremony on Compo Beach in Westport, Conn. The groom’s sister, Danielle Pomeraniec, led the ceremony, which included nine guests, all family.
Among those attending were the bride’s parents, Daphne Romanoff and Alex Chelminsky of Newton, Mass., and the groom’s parents, Rosalyn and Dr. Lazaro Pomeraniec of Westport.
Their wedding was originally supposed to take place at District Winery in Washington, with 180 guests, but the coronavirus forced the couple to change plans. A religious ceremony and reception are planned for April 2021.
“Whenever Jonathan and I are apart, I’m sad,” Ms. Chelminsky said. “I cannot imagine my life without him in it.”