That date — dinner at Novara in Milton — had also been a choose-your-own-adventure experience, curated by Shadlee. The software engineer was living and working in Cranston, Rhode Island, but did not hesitate to make the 45-minute drive to meet the accomplished, joyful woman he had matched with on Hinge. “If I’m taking someone out, I’m going to go the distance,” Shadlee says.
While Joanne is a Boston native, she had just moved back to the city that August after having completed her law degree at Howard University in D.C. She was impressed by Shadlee’s curated list of three restaurants, complete with links and brief descriptors for each. Allowing her to choose made the date a chance for “good collaboration,” she says. “It showed me he put a lot of thought into it.”
At Novara, they discovered their shared Christian beliefs and values and Haitian upbringings, learning they both speak Creole.
“He said a few jokes and I was, ‘Oh you’re Haitian,’” remembers Joanne, “because we’re both born here, and [sometimes] there’s varying degrees of how connected [to the culture] you are. The fact that he knew the language was really cool to learn about in person.”
The bond imprinted on her as feeling “safe. … He was such a comforting presence.” Shadlee, a self-identifying introvert, felt likewise; while he’d been nervous at first, Joanne’s “natural kindness” helped him relax.
“I could be myself and talk about things perfectly fine with her being able to reciprocate,” he says. “I don’t remember the restaurant, I don’t remember the waiter, it felt like it was just the two of us.”
In similar fashion, Shadlee presented his ideas for their second date — which he decided should be experiential, to mix things up. “The date, the time, the link. …. I was just stunned by his level of planning,” Joanne says.
The perfume workshop at the House of Arts & Crafts (now called The Creative Hub) was more intimate than anticipated, though “I’m glad she chose it, because that was my favorite from the list,” says Shadlee. They were the only two in attendance. But they had a “beautiful time,” each creating a unique blend of scents that they named Cest La Vie (her) and The Gentlemen (him). Content from their session wound up on the business’ social media accounts.
“It was great promo for them, but this was our second date,” emphasizes Joanne with a laugh. “They took videos. They turned it into a whole reel. It’s good content for us 1776817114, but I sent that to my friends and was like, ‘Guys…’ It was a lot of pressure.”
For their third date, Joanne invited Shadlee to the Holiday Pops. On the drive home, he parked his car on a well-lit block of Commonwealth Avenue where they continued to talk. (The heat was on, “I’m not trying to freeze her to death,” Shadlee says. “That’d be rude.”) As he drove her back to her house, Shadlee asked the question that had been on his mind all night: “Would you like to be my girlfriend?” Then, they shared their first kiss.
Their faith and their commitment to each other remained constants as the relationship evolved. Weekends included Saturday service; Wednesdays were reserved for devotionals. Shadlee’s back-and-forth from Rhode Island became “something to look forward to, a little bit of a ritual in a sense, and I get to see this beautiful woman.”
For Valentine’s Day, he booked a dinner cruise on Boston Harbor. As they watched the water and live jazz played, Shadlee remembers watching Joanne, thinking: I can see myself being with her forever.
“It’s that level of comfort, safe space, of being open and fully transparent and completely vulnerable,” he says.
They’d been dating eight months when they began pre-engagement counseling.
“I knew we weren’t there yet, but it was powerful to hear people confirm what we felt,” says Joanne. The program was run by a couple married for 15 years, who, upon meeting Shadlee and Joanne, told them: “We sense a safety between you that’s really rare.”
After celebrating their first year together, they attended a marathon of celebrations for family and friends between them — a sprint of nine nuptials, one of them international, and six out of state. Joanne’s uncle’s 50th birthday brought them to New York, where “by the end of the night, [my family] were referring to him as my husband” in Creole. After Shadlee’s brother’s D.C. wedding, the first time Joanne had met his family, he received nothing but rave reviews: “I have not found one person that does not like her. Friends, family, their dog, everybody loves her.”
“I always knew that in my partner, [I wanted] the peace, the sureness, the unwaveringness that I feel with God’s love that has just transformed my life,“ Joanne says. ”I felt that with Shad.”
Shadlee proposed on a private sunset cruise on Martha’s Vineyard on July 12, 2025. Taking a knee surrounded by rose petals, he quoted Colossians 3:14, as Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” the first song they danced to together, played.
Joanne, 33, and Shadlee, 36, wed on October 9, 2025, at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Dorchester. The couple opted for an intimate ceremony, planned in three months, with 12 members of their immediate family present. Dinner at the North End’s Florentine Cafe was family-style, served amid illuminated faux grapevines that hang from the ceiling of the restaurant’s downstairs.
“It has a very moody ambiance but very romantic,” says Joanne.
The couple picked the location as a tribute to their upcoming celebration in Italy, where they’ll toast their nuptials with a larger group of family and friends later this year. For their autumn micro-wedding, however, they managed to keep their budget small; Joanne broke down the itemized costs on her social media account, where she typically shares advice for aspiring lawyers.
She arranged white roses from Whole Foods into a sophisticated bouquet and wedding arch; the pair cut into the grocer’s famed Berry Chantilly Cake following their first dance (to Elvis, of course). And they wore the fragrances they’d made.
“We [made the perfumes] so early on in our relationship, and I typically only wear it for special occasions” says Joanne. “It brought back all the memories of love — the adventure, the excitement, the consideration. It made me think of everything that has been such a blessing and lifted the air in my life. It’s the fragrance of love.”
Read more from The Big Day, The Boston Globe’s weddings column.
This story has been updated to correct a photo caption spelling error in the bride’s last name and an error in the weekend day that the couple attended service.
Rachel Kim Raczka is a writer and editor in Boston. She can be reached at rachel.raczka@globe.com.
