After a first date at Popeyes, marriage was on the menu

Sharhea Wade was ready to forget Stevenson Boyce, whom she met on Hinge, because he twice canceled their first date. But shortly after a third (successful) attempt, she was ready to marry him.

Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen parking lot in Boston's Roslindale neighborhood is not a particularly romantic place for a first date. Nevertheless, when Stevenson Ricardo Boyce asked Sharhea Octavia Wade if she would meet him there one afternoon in May 2020, during the early days of the pandemic, she said no.

The two had originally met a few weeks earlier on the Hinge dating app. Ms Wade, 34, said Mr Boyce, 44, was the first person she met online and wanted to meet in person. But when he called that afternoon, she suspected he was about to call off their first date for the third time. Before he could get to the point, she made her own announcement.

"I just cut him short and said: If you call at again to cancel, so never call again,” she said.

He countered by offering to meet her in five minutes in the parking lot of the fast food chain, which was close to where she then lived. In this batch they talked so long that he had a meal (bought at KFC across the street as the queue at Popeyes was intimidating). They also shared a sunset and a first kiss.

"We definitely couldn't stop talking to each other," Ms. Wade said. Mr. Boyce added that their connection was "really great, like I've known her almost for a long time".

When the two met, Mr. Boyce, whose The six-year former marriage ended in divorce in 2011, juggling a whole handful of potential romantic prospects. But after a few meetings with Ms. Wade, "those other five started to get stale very quickly," he said.

Both have roots in the West Indies and learned that they share a commitment to family, community and building generational wealth through real estate, hard work and planning. During the first two weeks of their relationship, Ms Wade recalls telling Mr Boyce that they were getting married. "He looked at me like I was crazy," she said.

"One of the things that attracted me was is that he was describing his future, what he wants from his life, and it felt like he was choosing my dream," Ms Wade added. "It was surreal. Everything he said he wanted about his future was exactly what I wanted. class="img-sz-medium css-1l3p632 e1g7ppur0" aria-label="media" role="group">ImageCredit...Yuri Vaysgant

Mrs. Wade, a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and an MBA from Boston University, serves as vice president for global inclusion, diversity and equity at the financial services firm of Boston State Street Corporation, as well as president of the Boston chapter of the National Black Association MBA.

Mr. Boyce, who earned an associate's degree in computer technology from Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, is an information technology systems cybersecurity engineer at Destination XL Group, a clothing retailer in Canton, Mass.

About a month after their first date, at the end of June 2020, he asked her to be his girlfriend. She agreed, but not before asking him to let it be known that he was, as she put it, "off the market." Soon after, she hatched a plan for their future together.

"She said, I'm going to need you to move in in six months," Mr. Well...